tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11251216601975442722024-02-02T15:55:30.640+05:30My World... My Views...This is My Window to The World. A Window for the World to peep into My Mind. A Window for me to Speak Out to the World. A Window for Interaction. A Window to Stay Connected. A Window Into My Life!The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-78269254817298240652013-10-30T03:40:00.000+05:302013-10-31T08:29:38.137+05:30I Will Never Fly Air France - Or Will I?<div class="p1" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Genre: Travel</i></div>
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Since yesterday, a bunch of people have been sharing <a href="http://jayharishshah.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-night-in-paris.html"><span class="s1">this blog post</span></a> by a disgruntled passenger about his experience with Air France in Paris, with comments like "Never ever fly Air France!" Is it really as terrible as he makes it sound? What should <b>you</b> do if you get stuck in a similar situation?</div>
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Short response: As a rule of thumb, never ever fly Air France through <span class="s1"><a href="http://plus.lefigaro.fr/note/the-most-hated-airport-in-the-world-paris-charles-de-gaulle-20111117-602084">Charles De Gaulle</a>, </span>a living manifestation of hell on Earth. That will drastically reduce the probability of getting into a situation similar to this guy.<br />
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But then, what if it still happens? Will you end up with a "horror story" worth the outrage? Not if you do the following-</div>
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The guy in that blog was angry that he was informed of his flight's delay by an electronic display board, not a human being. Don't do this. In today's highly automated airline industry, an information screen can be trusted to have more accurate information than random airline employees.</div>
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If the airline staff says the aircraft is having technical issues, don't expect they will divulge more details. Either because they themselves don't have more information, or because the extra information is of no use to the passengers. For example- if the airline staff said that the hydraulic pump controlling starboard MLG is malfunctioning, you would be left wondering- what I am supposed to do with this piece of information?</div>
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Don't expect that the airline can always arrange an alternate plane to fly you. Flying a plane is not like driving a bus, that if one bus breaks down, bring any other bus and get going. There are fleet restrictions and pilot availability issues. For example, in that Paris incident, more than half of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France#Fleet"><span class="s1">Air France's fleet</span></a> is narrowbody aircraft that cannot fly from Paris to Mumbai. Then there are a bunch of Airbus A380s that can fly Paris-India, but the Indian government has banned them from operating into India. That leaves you with A330, A340 and B777 planes. Were any of them readily available to fly? Even if you find a plane ready to go, are there pilots and cabin crew available who are on duty and have experience operating a flight to Mumbai?</div>
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By all means, request, but don't expect that the airline will always put you on an alternate flight. For instance, for that guy stuck in Paris, are there alternate flights from Paris to Mumbai? No! The only Paris-Mumbai connection is 5 days a week Air France flight. Could they put him on a one-stop flight to Mumbai on some other airline? Maybe they could, but it is not always possible. </div>
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If the airline staff says there is no alternate flight to put you on, do not insist "did you check properly?" They refused you because they probably already know there is no other flight where they can put you and don't need to check. It's their damn daily job. If someone asks you a casual question about your line of work, do you always check monitors or make calls even if you know the answer?</div>
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If you don't get a transit visa, don't get angry at the airline. They have no say in it. It's the immigration officers' decision whether to give someone a transit visa or not. Ideally, considering it was a cancelled flight, they should give it, but they are within their rights to refuse a visa</div>
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Try asking for access to the airline's lounge, but be prepared that they may refuse since the lounges have limited space and are for paying Business/First class passengers. However, if you really wanted to go to a lounge, you pay for a Day Pass and get access. <a href="http://www.sleepinginairports.net/airport-lounges/europe/paris-cdg-red-carpet-club.htm"><span class="s1">United Club</span></a> and <a href="http://www.sleepinginairports.net/europe/paris.htm#lounge"><span class="s1">American Airlines Admiral's Club</span></a> at CDG both give access to anyone with a $50 day pass. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Don't go hungry simply because the airline did not provide you enough free food vouchers. </span>You are in an international airport. If you get hungry, you go and buy your own food. Starving yourself over a delay is not worth it.<br />
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Ask for a hotel for overnight stay. But if the airline cannot provide one, be prepared to sleep in the terminal. Most airports have portable beds, bedsheets and blankets for overnight delays. Be happy if you get one. It could have been worse. </div>
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All said and done, that blog wasn't the first time this has happened, won't be the last time. Air travel has its bit of uncertainties. When you travel, be mentally prepared for it. This is what you <b>should</b> do if stuck in a similar situation-</div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">Don't shout or overwhelm the gate agents. Many times they really don't much beyond that a flight is delayed, and nobody likes handling 200 shouting passengers. If you approach them politely, they will do everything they can to find an alternative for you.</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">If you are enrolled in a frequent flier program (if not, why are you not? It takes 5 minutes to join and is free! Do it now!) go to that airline or alliance's lounge. They may not give you entry on an Economy Class ticket, but the staff there has same access to the system as the gate agent and are not being overwhelmed by 200 people, so they can check up alternatives for you.</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">Use the meal vouchers provided by the airline to get whatever food you can, and buy more if you need. You can easily spend a few hours at restaurants rather than crowding around the gate. If you have special needs (vegetarian, no-beef etc) always carry your own snacks for emergency. Don't rely on an airport in a foreign country to provide you enough food choices to satisfy your dietary preferences.</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">If you want to relax, have shower, charge your phones, use internet and get some food and drinks, buy a one day pass to an airline lounge. Yes, it costs money, but it will be worth it, see below</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">Once you are back home, contact the airline and ask for refund and compensation. Europe has strict <a href="http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/"><span class="s1">Air Passenger Rights</span></a> Law that all European airlines have to abide. Quoting from the article-<span class="s4"> "If you are <b>denied boarding</b>, your flight is <b>cancelled</b> or arrives <b>more than 3 hours late</b> on arrival at the final destination stated on your ticket, you may be entitled to compensation of €250 - 600". </span>For flights over 3,500km, for example Paris-Mumbai like in this case, the airline will have to pay you 600 Euro compensation. This will easily cover all the food and lounge access expenses you had to do at the airport.</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">And lastly, Do not write passive aggressive Open Letters to the CEO. Instead, contact the airline- call them, email them, post on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Believe it or not, engaging the airline directly gives some amazing results.</li>
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In conclusion-<br />
What this guy mentioned in his blog is hyperbole and what actually happened could happen on any airline, its not Air France specific.<br />
Air France is not an airline worth flying, but not because THIS incident happened. Even without this, they have a pathetic passenger comfort and safety record. So if you have been flying AF in spite of knowing this, no need to change it because THIS happened. <br />
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Bon Voyage!</div>
The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-1802549183982117272012-03-21T08:20:00.000+05:302012-03-21T08:20:45.886+05:30Conference Rooms<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In Office Buildings,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">HOW CONFERENCE ROOMS ARE NAMED:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The We-Are-Global Company</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SNFQutL4iBk/T2k0uliRuSI/AAAAAAAAEGc/cHN9qkYJP8M/s1600/confroomplaces.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SNFQutL4iBk/T2k0uliRuSI/AAAAAAAAEGc/cHN9qkYJP8M/s640/confroomplaces.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The We-Are-Universal Company</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0oVdyK-aCtk/T2k04O1AfkI/AAAAAAAAEGk/X0NW8J0_YaA/s1600/confroomplanets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0oVdyK-aCtk/T2k04O1AfkI/AAAAAAAAEGk/X0NW8J0_YaA/s640/confroomplanets.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The We-Are-Cute Company</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UeQ9GCn_JMA/T2k1DgwlDTI/AAAAAAAAEGs/e_bGPOZdFEw/s1600/confroomflowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UeQ9GCn_JMA/T2k1DgwlDTI/AAAAAAAAEGs/e_bGPOZdFEw/s640/confroomflowers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The We-Love-Science Company</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aUiz40fnrQI/T2k1KPDDIGI/AAAAAAAAEG0/gi5hM7Lk9nM/s1600/confroomscientist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aUiz40fnrQI/T2k1KPDDIGI/AAAAAAAAEG0/gi5hM7Lk9nM/s640/confroomscientist.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The We-Are-Cool-Geeks Company</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-STzji69_zFU/T2k1QyCrRMI/AAAAAAAAEG8/gSSqjuWppZY/s1600/confroomstarwar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-STzji69_zFU/T2k1QyCrRMI/AAAAAAAAEG8/gSSqjuWppZY/s640/confroomstarwar.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">HOW CONFERENCE ROOMS <i><b>SHOULD</b> </i>BE NAMED:</span></div>
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Seriously, who ever thought employees who have a meeting to attend in the middle of a workday would love spending fifteen minutes roaming across the building scratching their heads trying to figure out where the heck is <i>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Conference Room</i>? </div>
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<br /></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-83338892846650133162012-02-23T09:15:00.000+05:302012-02-23T09:19:57.111+05:30The Great Airline Showdown<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Genre: Travel</i></div>
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Now that I have done trans-continental journeys between India and the United States by five different airlines, one from each of the five different broad categories available for India-US travel i.e. US based airline, India based airline, cheap Gulf based airline, posh Gulf based airline and Europe based airline, it’s time to pitch them against each other in the Great Airline Showdown!
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The table above summarizes my experience with each of the
airlines for impatient people. If you have the patience, a detailed review
follows below. Some disclaimers before we start off-</span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is purely my personal
opinion based on one personal experience on each of the airlines, so don’t
come to kill me if you experience something drastically different on your
flights from what I mention here.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The flights considered for
comparison are- Delta’s Mumbai-Atlanta non-stop (no longer in existence),
Jet Airways’ Mumbai-Brussels-Newark, Kuwait Airways’
Mumbai-Kuwait-London-New York, Qatar Airways’ Mumbai-Doha-Washington and
Lufthansa’s Mumbai-Frankfurt-Dallas.</span></li>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Seats<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">On ultra-long haul transcontinental flights in Economy
class, my biggest concern (and nightmare) is the seat comfort and legroom. This
is the single most important thing that can make or ruin (mostly ruin) the
20-odd hour journey. My first experience was on Delta’s Boeing 777 with 3-3-3
seating, and it being my first long haul flight I was distracted by a lot of
things but I do remember the legroom was just enough to sit without poking your
knees into the seat ahead. Jet Airways Airbus 330 is almost the same when it
comes to legroom but I prefer the 2-4-2 layout because now you have to disturb
only one person (as opposed to two in B777) every time you want to get up to go
to the loo (or to the galley to nick some free chocolates and snacks). Kuwait Airways’
3-3-3 and the legroom is as good (or bad) as Delta while Lufthansa again scores
for the 2-4-2 layout. The clear winner here is Qatar with its generous legroom
that makes up for the 3-3-3 layout. This was the only flight on which I could
actually comfortably rest without wriggling around like a fish taken out of
water.</span></div>
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<b>Ambiance</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When it comes to ambience and interiors of the plane, all
five airlines more or less represented their origins. Delta has clean and
functional but blah interiors showing the typical I-don’t-care American
attitude. Same thing for Lufthansa. It has everything that should be there, but
don’t expect unnecessary glamour. Typical European. Kuwait Airways is the worst
of the lot, what with torn seat covers, dirty toilets and seats that either
stay only reclined or not recline at all. On the other hand, Jet Airways has
nice LED lighting, moisturizers and deodorants in the washroom.. the little
things that make you feel good. And of course, the winner in this category is
Qatar with its multi-color mood lighting that simulates time of the day,
amenity kits for all passengers including toothpaste, brush etc and nice
well-maintained planes.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Staff<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The female flight attendants on Delta are straight out of
old-age home, so aged that I felt bad asking them to bring something for me.
Kuwait Airways has a random mix of European, Chinese, Indian flight attendants
(surprisingly none Middle-Eastern) and it’s a hit or miss depending on whom you
have on your side of the plane. Lufthansa’s all-European cabin crew is
charming, smiling but will stick exactly to their prescribed duty schedules.
Nothing more, nothing less. Qatar and Jet Airways both score high on friendly,
smiling, helpful crew that goes out of their way to make you feel good, whether
it is by bringing extra ice cream and chocolates for the kids or chatting and
joking with the passengers. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Food<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Food! The only thing that I look forward to on long haul
flights. The only thing that breaks the monotony of sitting and staring at a
screen for hours. I have always ordered Asian Vegetarian Meal on all flights,
so that makes the comparison fair. In this department Lufthansa disappoints.
Big time. First, their definition of Indian meal is rice and random vegetables
in gravy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Second, someone needs to explain them
that Indian gravies have oil.. that seeps.. into other things packed with it. I
had the (mis)fortune of eating (or throwing away) puri soaked in oil from veg
korma, with salty gaajar ka halwa on one flight, and water soaked roti with
rubbery paneer bhurji in another. Now before you jump on me claiming that it
was my fault ordering Indian food on non-Indian airline, well, other non-Indian
airlines have fared remarkably well in this department. Delta served decent dinner
and quite good idli and masala dosa; Kuwait Airways, in spite of being low in
other departments, scored a winner here with finger-licking delicious meals,
and once again Qatar and Jet Airways won the way to my heart through my
stomach! Worth noting here is Jet Airways serving Pav Bhaji (yes, tasty Pav
Bhaji!) and Ragda Pattice onboard and also Belgian chocolate ice cream. None of
the other airlines had an ice-cream after the meals.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Entertainment<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In-seat screens with several dozen movies and TV shows is the
norm across airlines these days, so not much to compare here. Just a couple of
notable points- some of Lufthansa’s dinosaur era Boeing 747 do not have
individual screens and I had to bear one such flight, with only two bulky CRT
monitors in the aisle playing random stuff. Kuwait Airways technically has
in-seat screens but you have a better chance of winning a lottery than getting
a working screen on this plane. In my flights, some screens worked only when
you bang them, one screen worked with remote from adjacent seat, and some
screens randomly turned black and white from color! </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Punctuality<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Touch wood, by God’s grace, all my transcontinental flights
across airlines have always been more or less right on time at departure and
arrival, except two incidents- the Jet Airways plane developed a technical snag
at Brussels that delayed it by an hour, but the staff made up for it by
promptly distributing vouchers for passengers to go around and buy fine Belgian
chocolates! On other occasion the Kuwait Airways plane encountered a problem
before takeoff from Kuwait and everyone sat in a stationary plane in the desert
for two hours “celebrating” turn of the New Year (00:00 Jan 1<sup>st</sup>
local time!) as apparently “someone had gone to the store to bring the
replacement part” according to the pilots.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Connection Hub<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today, unless you are flying to New Jersey, any journey from
Mumbai to United States involves at least one change of flight, so it matters
what is the condition of the connecting hub. My Delta flight was non-stop to
Atlanta but since I had to take an onward domestic flight I will consider
Atlanta as the connecting hub for it. Hartsfield Jackson International is the
world’s busiest airport and it shows. The place is huge, and the gates have
minimal seating, so the whole place resembles CST railway station with people
squatting on the floor. Kuwait Airways is test of endurance as you have to
first transit through Kuwait City ST Bus Depot, which for some reason is called
Kuwait International Airport, and then through hell-hole of the world- London
Heathrow! Qatar’s Doha hub is better than Kuwait but nothing to write home
about, unless of course you love taking a long bus ride through desert to reach
your plane from the terminal. If you love watching planes and aviation,
Lufthansa’s Frankfurt hub is absolute HEAVEN for the sheer quantity and variety
of planes on display, but for regular travelers it is laid out in a very
confusing manner, and yes, it is no fun to get out in minus 15 degree C to
board a bus to take you to the plane. Brrrr! Jet Airways’ Brussels hub is cool-
not too confusing, clean and spacious, and all connecting flights arrive and
departure from adjacent gates so no walking around. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Crowd<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">On any India-US flight there is a probability approaching
one that there will be lots of desi kaka, characterized by asking for alcohol
every single time a drinks trolley passes by and standing up in the aisle as
soon as the plane has touched down on the runway. On any flight heading to a
Middle Eastern country, a good proportion of passengers are workers going there
for manual labour, who have obviously got into a plane for the first time in
their life, and it shows. On Qatar it was okay, but Kuwait Airlines simulates
experience of boarding a train from LTT to Gorakhpur. The most well-behaved and
classy crowd is on Lufthansa- I was pleasantly surprised to see not one person
standing up from their seats after we touched down in Mumbai, right upto the
point where the flight attendants announced that the doors are open. Rare
sight!</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is commonly known fact that people buying tickets for
India-US journeys look at only three things while making their decision- price,
price and price. Nothing wrong it in, especially for people who just want to go
from Point A to Point B by hook or by crook, but you need to remember that you
get what you paid for. In my comparison, Kuwait Airways fares quite badly per
se, but when put in perspective that I paid only $900-odd for the roundtrip
compared to $1200-1400 I have had to pay for the other four, it’s not a bad
deal. That being said, it makes sense
sometimes to look a little below the first (cheapest) option on the website-
the slight extra paid might be well worth the experience. Bon Voyage! </span></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-36041443985116023072011-11-12T11:13:00.001+05:302011-11-12T12:07:24.400+05:30The Ultimate Guide to Indian Train Travel<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c3llbDD6KNw/Tr4H3sL_TqI/AAAAAAAAEEg/zBmgL-7II2s/s1600/DSC00345_filtered_filtered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="489" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c3llbDD6KNw/Tr4H3sL_TqI/AAAAAAAAEEg/zBmgL-7II2s/s640/DSC00345_filtered_filtered.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Ultimate Guide to Indian Train Travel</span></i></b></div>
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Why am I writing this? Because of the hordes of western tourists who decide to travel by choice by unreserved Second Class in an Indian train in spite of seven more comfortable classes available, then go home and write blogs criticizing "how pathetic and dirty all Indian trains are". The next person doing this shall be dragged back to India and locked inside a dirty toilet in a similar unreserved Second Class coach of Kurla-Gorakhpur Express in peak summer. If you ever need to travel by an Indian train, the following guidance will be more than sufficient to have a pleasant trip. Or maybe not. </div>
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In spite of economic progress and India Shining and low cost airlines and multi-axle Volvo buses with leather seats and in-seat TV screens and six lane expressways and swanky cars, chances are if you are in India, at some point your travels will involve taking the Indian Railways. And although the AC coaches are more comfortable and delicate-traveler-friendly, there is no better way to enjoy India and enjoy a journey than the humble Sleeper class coach of an Indian Railways train. The typical Sleeper class journey experience involves the following stages-</div>
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<b>1. The Reservation</b></div>
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In the pre-internet days, getting a confirmed sleeper class reservation on any train required an elaborate ritual of heading to the Reservation counter at the local railway station, filling up a detailed form, waiting in a serpentine queue for hours in heat or cold or rain, encountering either a totally disinterested or an overly enthusiastic clerk and praying to your deity of choice to receive a rectangular blue and white dot-matrix printed ticket. When the internet age came along, Indian Railways thought this experience should be recreated online and with this sole purpose in mind was created the great IRCTC website. At 8am every morning, thousands of frustrated Indians religiously use some selective words against imaginary mother and sister of IRCTC website, but after an hour of drama, you will eventually get a confirmed reservation. Except when you don't- in which case you will be pulled into a complicated system of Waitlist and RAC and Tatkal and agents. For the moment lets assume you were spared that experience and you have a confirmed sleeper ticket. On to the next step.</div>
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<b>2. The Hope</b></div>
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On the day of travel, once you have negotiated your way through the maze of passengers and their relatives and reached your coach, every male passenger stops outside the door and goes into a dream sequence imagining romance blooming on the train with a pretty female co-passenger like it happened in a couple of Bollywood movies, then opens his eyes, carefully goes through the Reservation chart pasted outside the coach, expecting some F21, F19 passengers but rather finds all middle aged uncles or families assigned seats around him and makes a slow walk to his berth. If you are traveling by an Indian train for the first time, do not forget this step. It is an essential one.</div>
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<b>3. The Adjustment</b></div>
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If you are boarding from the starting station of a train the first thirty minutes after boarding will be spent in The Great Indian Adjustment Game. If boarding from an intermediate station, you have lost the game before having a chance to make your move. Irrespective of what berth you have been assigned, there will always be some passenger who would want you to exchange it with his/her berth. A six year old brat kid will invariably start Occupy Window Seat movement forcing himself onto your lap or squeezing himself in between you and the window. Families of four with two reserved berths and twelve pieces of luggage will make themselves comfortable on a part of your berth after shovelling their bags in every inch of available space below the seats. Do not get scared by this experience. This is the best ice-breaker ever. Once you have successfully adjusted yourself to everyone's satisfaction, you will reap the benefits of it in the next step.</div>
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<b>4. The Food</b></div>
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Depending on your luck, your train may or may not have a Pantry Car. If it has one, you will get to see the ultimate example of standardization in the world- every single meal item sold on every train will look and taste exactly the same. One one journey from Mumbai to Jammu, I was served exact same gravy, but called <i>Aloo Mutter</i> at lunch, <i>Chana Masala</i> at dinner and <i>Chhole</i> at the second day's lunch. This is the time to reap benefits of the previous step. Tha families around you will always have enough food to feed a small African country for a week and they will happily share it with you. Try everything. It is the most fun part of a train journey, but do not overeat, because then you will have to use the toilet, which takes us to the next step.</div>
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<b>5. La Loo</b></div>
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Sleeper class coaches on Indian trains have Western and Indian style toilets but there is no guarantee that there will be posterior-cleaning supplies available, neither western nor Indian. The trick is to observe around the coach carefully to see if people walking up and down the aisle are carrying empty water bottles or not. If they are, you should also carry one to the loo. Trust me, you will not regret this. Once inside, you will experience cool breeze hitting your posterior. Look down and you will witness a facility unique to Indian Railways- a loo with a view. You have not experienced a train journey unless you have seen the tracks below while answering nature's call!</div>
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<b>6. The Sleeper</b></div>
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A majority of passengers take the term "Sleeper Class" too literally. They will want to sleep as soon as the sun goes down, and sometimes even when the sun is high up in the sky. Invariably the person having the middle berth will have the maximum enthusiasm to get the berth down and sleep, thereby forcing the lower berth occupying passenger to crouch and Upper Berth passenger to climb up to his little abode. Try to delay the inevitable and they will argue- "But I paid for my Sleeper reservation. I don't want to waste it!". You have no option but to give in, but here comes the next, and best step.</div>
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<b>7. The Door</b></div>
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This is something you cannot do on a plane or a luxury bus but can do in an Indian Railways Sleeper coach. Stand at the open door and enjoy the breeze! When you think you have had enough of conversations with co-passengers on everything from current affairs to sports to origin of universe and that your body has made sufficient use of the berth to get above the threshold of "wasting sleeper reservation", head out to the door and stand or sit at the footstep enjoying the view outside. Some like to have music in their ears while doing this, but if you ask me, the rythmic sound of metal wheels against the metal rail is the best melody ever. </div>
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<b><i>Happy Journey! </i></b></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-74569436345320634772011-10-06T07:45:00.000+05:302011-10-06T07:45:03.116+05:30One More Thing...<br />
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I am not an Apple fanboy. I do not own a single Apple product. But still, the news of demise of Steve Jobs has saddened me. On my way back from work I had picked up my favorite food that I was craving to have since a long time and was cheerful about it, but now that's the last thing on my mind. Why? Why has the death of a man who is in no way related to me affected me so much? Because this man was a genius, and losing him is a loss to everyone. And when I say this, I am neither being overly emotional nor exxaggerating. Saying that Steve Jobs revolutionized the way the world communicates today is not an understatement. It is a fact. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hq5sjeaDL5I/To0MZYcKMoI/AAAAAAAAEEE/yP7Or8U6axk/s1600/steve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hq5sjeaDL5I/To0MZYcKMoI/AAAAAAAAEEE/yP7Or8U6axk/s320/steve.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I have, on several occasions, expressed my displasure and criticized various Apple products- from the MacBook Air to the iPhone 4S that was released just yesterday, so you may be wondering why this sudden love for Steve Jobs? First of all, it is not sudden. I have always admired this guy. It is because he was a unique man who could accomplish this feat of garnering respect from even the people who disliked the products his company made. Why? Because he was more than just another CEO of just another big company. He was a man who knew what the world wants. He was a man who knew to read the world's heart. I have a Master's degree in Wireless Communications and work at one of the world's leading telecom company, so it is natural that I feel the desire to scrutinize every device Apple has launched in the past few years and ended up finding some or the other minor technical shortcoming in it that took away my interest from buying it, but that's because I am a self-confessed geek who thinks too much, but the world is not like that. The world wants things that make their life simpler, are easy to use, and look nice. Steve Jobs knew this perfectly well. And he designed his products for the world. He developed products that gave access to technology to the people who were previously deprived of it because it was too complicated. He made products that made technology simple. From the big heavy Personal Computers to small designer Mac. From awkward Walkman requiring cassettes to play to the iPod that made listening to music simple. From bulky ugly looking Nokia and Motorola phones of the early 2000s to the sleek iPhone that simplified the smartphone experience. The iPad that gave access to technology to millions of people who found it too complex to use a full fledged computer. And while fiercely protecting his products and innovations, he knowingly or unknowingly opened up a huge market with competition that drives even more innovation. It wouldn't be wrong to say that it was his iOS that led to the growth of Android and thousands of developers across the world innovating daily to be at the top of the race. It was his iPad that led to fierce competition for tablets and the research and innovation that is going into making all of those. It was his imagination and products that moved technology from being the playground of geeks to being a part of mainstream life of people across the world. This is by no means a small achievement. </div>
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And, wait! There is one more thing... </div>
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He made black turtlenecks popular. </div>
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Rest in Peace Steve Jobs. iRespect.</div>
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And one more thing...</div>
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I am going to enjoy that food I brought on the way home, not mourn, following advice of Steve Jobs himself- "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." </div>
The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-31537361256951759712011-09-30T05:20:00.002+05:302011-09-30T05:23:27.137+05:30No Land For Single People<i>Genre and all I have stopped mentioning now.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The world is unfair to single guys, well to be technically correct, a guy who lives alone, as I have realized two months into my experiment of living alone. No, this is not going to be a sentimental rant about loneliness, so if you have moved your cursor towards the Back or Close button on your browser, stop, and continue reading. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The discrimination against guys living alone transcends across continents and has percolated across myriad sectors. Let's look at travelling here in the United States- on highways in cities, they reserve lanes where single folks are not allowed to drive. Very nicely they call it 'High Occupancy Lanes' and only allow cars with two or more people in it to use these traffic-free lanes. In which universe is two considered a high number? Encouraging car-pooling and all is just excuse, I tell you, they just want the single guys to suffer in traffic and watch couples happily breeze past them in High Occupancy Lanes. It's just rubbing salt in their wounds, a way of saying, "Dude, live with a girlfriend (ok ok, boyfriend is also now legal) and then you can zoom ahead of the traffic". Unfair only it is. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Think of moving away from this by leaving the car home and take the train to travel and they will again bombard you with the same unfair treatment. You can book one seat on Amtrak trains, but if you want to book a sleeper berth, you have to book two only. Even if you are travelling alone, they will ask you to pay for two people and book a roomette if you want a sleeper berth. If not injustice, what is this? Yes, we know it is nice to travel as couples and have a private roomette to yourself to indulge in various activities but why do you need to rub it in to single guys? Back in India it is better because they let you book one sleeper berth if you are travelling alone, but the injustice against single guys does not stop. It comes back to haunt you in other ways. First of all, Indian Railways has this sadistic pleasure module in their reservation system that will never ever give a single guy a nice window seat or a lower berth, and if by some stroke of luck it assigns one, at the time of travel someone will invariably come and ask you to move from your originally chosen berth to some random upper berth because they have an old uncle or fat aunty who cannot climb to their assigned berths. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Driving is unfair, trains are unfair, so you decide to fly and the ghost of unfair treatment comes back to haunt you. Every damn airline will operate their domestic flights with a 3-3 seat configuration and long international flights with a 3-3-3 configuration, so if you are a single guy, you have to endure torture of a chatty couple or annoying uncle-aunty or some similar combination of two people next to you. They could have thought of keeping 2-4 seating so that single guys stand some chance of landing up with a pretty fellow single co-passenger but no, that they won't do. They just don't want single guys to be excited and look forward to travelling. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">About restaurants and bars and night clubs being unfair to single guys, the lesser said about it, better. They will let couples in free but if you are a single guy, ask you to pay up. They don't realise they are doing it wrong. It is the single guys who need to visit the bars and clubs so they can socialize and find someone interesting and so they are the ones who should be allowed in free. The couples are supposed to be happy with each other's company. If they need to head to a bar or club for fun, it means their love life is probably rather boring, and the bar should charge them for helping them get over their boredom. The restaurants are not so unfair, but are not completely welcoming either. They will never have tables for one person, minimum will be two, and if you show up alone, the staff will stare at you left and right, and behind, to see if you are hiding a midget partner somewhere or are really alone. (But, I love Denny's. They are impartial. They serve their cheap unhealthy food with equal enthusiasm to single guys and large groups.) </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">By the way, all this applies only to single guys. If you are a single girl, well, that's a completely different story for some other day. </span></div>
The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-88841399366099973642011-08-28T22:01:00.000+05:302011-08-28T22:01:50.862+05:30Bill pe Bill<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Genre: Humor</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Now that the government has agreed to include the recommendations of Anna Hazare in the proposed Lok Pal Bill, several other prominent personalities from the civil and not-so-civil Indian society have decided that they will also come up with their own versions of the Lok Pal bill to present to the government for consideration.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Arindam Chaudhury will present the IIPMPal Bill. Dare to think beyond Lokpal. Everyone enrolling to support his version of the draft will get free laptops and a study tour to Europe. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Rahul Dravid will start writing his draft of the Lokpal bill and will continue non-stop for five days. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Chetan Bhagat will publish his version as a book. Three Mistakes Of Lokpal: What Not To Do In Government</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Ram Gopal Varma will present a sequel. Lok Pal Ki Aag.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Aamir Khan will release only one chapter of his Lok Pal Bill per year.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Lalit Modi will start a Lokpal Premier League (LPL)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Ekta Kapoor will script a version that will run for seven years and will be called Kkok Pal Bill</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">When Rakhi Sawant was asked if she will also contribute, she said "Yeh Lokpal hain na, mereko usse shaadi karneka hai. Mereko na usse ekdum love ho gayela hai" </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Although not an Indian citizen, Steve Jobs will be allowed as an honorary guest to launch his version called iPal Bill. After six months he will launch a faster, slimmer version called iPal2. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Rajinikanth will not present any bill. He himself will be the Lokpal and the entire committee.</span></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-55484486370269461402011-08-20T06:33:00.000+05:302011-08-20T06:33:55.213+05:30What's In A (Re)name?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Genre: Current Affairs</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">No, this is not about the Anna Hazare-Lokpal issue. Everybody and their pet dog have presented enough and more views and counterviews on it by now.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Apart from cricket, India has another favorite pastime. It’s called Change the Name game. Many Indians, most of them in power, believe that the names given to streets, monuments, villages, towns, cities, even states of the country are not good enough and it is their sacred duty to rename anything and everything that has a name. Initially the argument put forward to indulge in this activity was that it is a sin to call places built by the British in India by the names the British gave, so they should be renamed. Accordingly Victoria Terminus became Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Connaught Place became Rajiv Chowk and so on. Not satisfied with just this, came the second round or arguments- that the British “spoiled” the original names of our cities, so they should be renamed to their original pure<i> </i>form. In the process Bombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai, Calcutta became Kolkata, Trivandrum became tongue-twisting Thiruvanatanthapuram, Bangalore will soon become Bengaluru, Mangalore will become Mengaluru and so on and so forth, in the process wasting millions of rupees of taxpayer money in repainting all signboards, reprinting new stationery and updating all maps and databases.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">After renaming of cities was done, someone thought, hey wait, this is not enough. We can go one level higher. Let’s rename our states too. And so it began. The ministers of the newly formed state of Uttaranchal felt the name was not good enough, and in the most expensive Backspace operation in history, decided to tweak the name to Uttarakhand. No, don’t ask me how this is any better. It just is. Because they said it is. Next to grab this opportunity was Mamata Banerjee, (who anyways has a penchant for grabbing many things including attention and cabinet ministry), who came up with the most unbelievable argument in the history of renaming- West Bengal is alphabetically last among Indian states, so its turn comes last in roll call and by that time the audience falls asleep, and to correct this catastrophic problem, passed a bill to rename the state to Paschim Banga (which she pronounces Poschim Bongo thereby making it feel like the name of a tribal village in central Africa) which brings her state’s roll number up to 21 from 28. Huge improvement! Now Uttarakhand becomes the last-in-roll-call. Now it will be fun if they decide to re-rename their state using the same argument. And then Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh should do the same and boom! We are back to square one! And then Paschim Banga can think or renaming themselves further up in the alphabet. This cycle can go on and on and on. And millions of rupees of tax money can be spent on it. Meanwhile does it matter that the state has one of the worst road infrastructure in the country? Does it matter that the Naxal movement has resulted in night-travel ban on the important Mumbai-Howrah rail route resulting in trains being detained for upto eight hours inconveniencing thousands of travelers every day since the last fifteen months? Do these things need attention and money of the government? No, they can wait. More important is ensuring that the state’s name is not called out last during roll-calls.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Before these folks come up with the idea of changing the name of India itself, I will go and search for a new name for my blog because this one comes too late in the alphabetical order, so what if it doesn't matter anywhere.</span></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-31163990469058101402011-07-26T20:18:00.000+05:302011-07-26T20:18:10.847+05:30The Longest Night<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Non-fiction</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Its yet another dark rainy Tuesday afternoon, common during Mumbai monsoons and at 2pm just after the lunch break, students in a class in VJTI in Matunga are discussing whether to sit for the next lecture or not, one eye on the heavy rain that is pouring outside. No unanimous decision is reached and half the class bunks the lecture and leaves while I am in the other half that decides to sit for one more hour before leaving, hoping the rain would subside by then. By the time the lecture is over, the rain has shown no signs of subsiding. Rather it is pouring harder, nothing unusual about it, we see days like these every monsoon. Me and Sid are taking a cab to Dadar station when dad calls on my mobile- "Do you want me to come to Dadar to pick you up? The trains may not be running". I shrug off his offer- "No need. I'll go to station and see. If trains are not running, I'll let you know". We reach Dadar station and heave a sigh of relief to see the indicators still showing Borivali Slow and Virar Fast as usual. We get into the First Class coach of 3.20 Borivali Slow and it runs smoothly through pouring rain to the first stop- Matunga Road and then to Mahim. After the usual 30 second stop, it departs and slowly ambles along and comes to a stop in the mangrove-filled area between Mahim and Bandra. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour, the train shows no signs of moving. By now some passengers have jumped off the train and started walking on the tracks. Me and Sid discuss "How silly! Why can't they just wait inside rather than getting drenched like this." I call up dad and tell him the situation. He suggests coming to Dharavi overbridge by car and once he is there, I jump off the train and get on to the bridge and the car. We wait. An hour passes. And another. Dad says he is stuck somewhere in Chembur at the other end of town and suggests we do not wait for him and start moving ahead on our own. Now this is a bit worrying. We look around. Everyone has left the coach except us and one other man. We jump off the train onto the tracks, and not wanting to stay back alone, the Bihari man, we call him Gajodhar, also jumps with us. We walk along the length of the train towards Bandra and when we reach the driver's cabin, we realise the extraordinary situation at hand- the motorman has abandoned the train, locked the cabin and left! Now this is something I have never seen or heard happening in Mumbai rains. We walk along with hundreds of other passengers coming from various stranded trains until we reach the Mithi river bridge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The railway bridge on Mithi river, though not very long, is treacherous. It has no walkway, no safety railings, in fact not even a firm base. There are metal sheets laid between the tracks, through which now we can see the usually quiet and stinky Mithi river now overflowing with water whose speed would put whitewater rafting locations to shame, and this just two feet below track level! There is no option, the river has to be crossed. Volunteers ask passengers to form a single human chain, holding each others hands, to carefully walk over the rickety metal sheets and cross the bridge. We somehow manage to do this, and think the ordeal is over since now we can safely perch ourselves at Bandra station, bot how wrong we are! The sight at Bandra station is one I have never seen before. All the tracks are filled with water upto platform levels and the entire station looks like Kumbh mela, overflowing with passengers occupying every single inch of available space. Now one thing is clear- there is no way trains are going to run anytime soon. We need to find alternate transport. We walk out of the station, hoping to walk to SV Road a few hundred meters away and take a bus from there, but wait! The entire road from station to SV Road is filled with knee deep water, and its dark. Impossible to walk through this. As if this is not enough, to add to our woes, Gajodhar has been following us all along and declares "I am new to this city. I don't know how to reach Borivali. I will come with you guys wherever you are going!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Me and Sid look at each other and decide to go back to the station. On platform 2, there is one local train standing amidst deep water, powered down but filled with passengers. We tell Gajodhar to wait inside this train as it will go to Borivali while we go to use the washroom. Making sure he is well inside the train, we run away from that platform as fast as we can. Its around 8pm already when uncle finally manages to get through one call to my mobile through the congested network. He says he is travelling by car with his boss and should be crossing Bandra shortly, and ask me and Sid to manage reaching SV Road somehow. We walk out to the bus station. As we are discussing the possibilities, one BEST bus driver decides he will brave out the deep water on the road outside and take his bus to Bandstand! Immediately we hop onboard along with a hundred other passengers and ask him to drop us beyond the flooded street on to SV Road. As promised, he revs up the engines, turns on the headlights and pierces the bus through nearly three feet deep water and stops safely near SV Road where a majority of the passengers get off. We walk to the decided spot on SV Road and wait for uncle. We wait and wait. An hour passes. We see hordes and hordes of people walking and realise the situation doesn't seem good anywhere in the city. Around 9.30pm, uncle comes in his boss's car and we are overjoyed to find dry shelter and a ride home. Or so we think.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The driver decides to continue on SV Road since the highway is jam packed, but traffic cops divert us on to Linking Road citing water logging ahead. So far so good. There is traffic but its crawling at a decent pace. It takes an hour to reach Khar. From here, we are diverted into some small lanes where we get stuck and how. An hour passes but there are no signs of movement. Uncle's boss doesn't live far from here but we have a long way to go. So he suggests we rather get off and start walking like the others and after initial hesitation, we give in. Its around midnight now, the rain has stopped for a bit but some areas have power cut, so it is dark, wet and terribly crowded. By midnight we make our way to SV Road and start walking northwards with the huge crowd. Students, office goers, businessmen in expensive suits, celebrities, everyone is walking together, Mother Nature has brought everyone to one level. Upto Santacruz the walk goes fine but then its trouble. SV Road around Juhu airport is flooded with two feet of water but thankfully there is help at hand. hard working folks from Mumbai Fire Brigade have formed a human chain, have ropes set out for people to hold on to, and are guarding open manhole covers. In one single line, hundreds and hundreds of people slowly cross the long waterlogged stretch. We are hungry, dead tired but our survival instinct keeps us going and we reach Andheri station by 3am.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once at Andheri, we hope the trains have started running again so we head straight to the station, but no luck. There are trains parked on every platform, packed with passengers, but with no signs of moving. Also, walking further is not possible since the cops have closed SV Road north of Andheri station due to excessive water logging. There is no option but to find shelter somewhere close by. Sid lives in Andheri but far from the station, so the ordeal is not over for him either. Luckily soon he finds a truck driver who is willing to take people onboard and drive towards where Sid lives, so he hops onboard. Me and uncle cross over to the east side and head to a building nearby where one of our relatives live. We walk into the colony, dead tired, in the dark owing to powercut, and find our way up the stairs and ring the doorbell. No answer. Ring again. No answer. Finally we ring the doorbell of their neighbours who wake up startled. We ask them to phone our relatives and wake them from sleep! They do it, and finally the door opens and we get a place to sleep for the night, or whatever was left of it, since it was already 4am. We wake up and head to Andheri station by 10am, and turns out, by then train services north of Andheri is just beginning to restart, although not as per timetable. After a half hour wait, the train we are onboard starts, and slowly but steadily drops us at Malad station, from where its a five minute walk to Home Sweet Home! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thus ended the ordeal. The journey that took 20 hours to travel 20 kilometers. Thus ended the night the city suffered as one, came out in the dead hours to help each other and stand united. Thus ended the longest night Mumbai city has seen. The night of 26th July 2005. </div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-69609074095463757002011-07-14T05:31:00.001+05:302011-07-14T05:39:48.582+05:30When Will This Stop?<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Current Affairs</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, yesterday Mumbai once again witnessed serial bomb blasts. 1993, 2003, 2005, 2008 and now again. Once again the common citizens of the city have lost lives even as the culprit of the previous attacks enjoys VIP treatment in special jail and the netas of the state "offer deep condolences", their lazy fat asses safely tucked behind a wall of security personnel. This has reached a stage when I no longer feel enraged at the terrorists doing these attacks. The rage is entirely towards the spineless incapable government, of the state as well in Delhi. As someone had rightly said, Civilizations fall not so much because of the strength of the enemy outside, as through the weakness and decay within. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now the moment I say this, some smart Alec will come up with the straight-out-of-Civics-textbook statement that "it is we who elected this government, so whatever is happening is our fault, and next time we should ensure we bring the right people to power". True, very true theoretically, but if only things were as simple as that in reality. Did "we" really elect this government to power? Talking of myself, I did not. In the last election, many of us did not vote for the well-known corrupt candidate. We went by the "We want change" principle and voted for an IIT engineer who was contesting the election with the utopian idea of "Be the change you want to see". But what happened? He lost badly and like every time, the same corrupt politician won the election. How? Votebanks. In this "largest democracy in the world", most of the winners are decided much ahead of the election date. How and why does this happen? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Take an example. Before every election, a politician from a certain party visits a slum locality near my residence and offers the people living there a cash incentive and foodgrains to vote for him. If he did this to me, it wouldn't swing me in favour of voting for him, because for me principles matter more than the money. But does the same apply for my maid who lives in that slum? No. For her, the money matters more than principles. Why? Because she is poor. Why? Because she is uneducated. Can I do something about this? Yes, encourage her to send her kids to school so that they don't get pulled into this same quicksand. In the meantime, how do the existing politicians afford to spend so much money on their votebanks? Because they are shamelessly corrupt and accumulate millions of rupees in bribes. Can we stop this? Theoretically yes. How? By getting a strong anti-corruption bill passed in the Parliament. Will it happen? No. Why? Because the sitting MPs will reject any bill that plugs their "source of income". Why? Because they are in power and they can unanimously do what they want to. Can we remove them from power and get someone else in? Theoretically yes, but practically nearly impossible. Why? Because they have vote banks. Why do so many people vote for corrupt politicians for money? Because they are poor. Why? Because they have not got enough opporunities to get educated. Can we get them all educated? Possible, but a Herculean task. Will the existing government want to sincerely do it? No. Because that would mean digging their own grave. Why educate everyone and make them rise up to vote on principles and get thrown out of power when its easier to "buy" their votes with little money? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In short, this is a very messy vicious spiral. If India aspires to truly become a world superpower, this spiral has to stop. How to do it is a very difficult question to answer but someone has to do it. Someone who? We, the citizens of India. We need to realize voting is not the only way to bring about change. Do we have that potential to bring about the change? Yes, we do. Incidentally, the people of India showed what potential they have to come together and unite for a cause yesterday itself, in the aftermath of the serial bomb blasts. While the TV news channels were busy shouting out irrelevant stuff about how they were the first to report the blasts and assorted bullshit, scores of unknown heroes, common men and women from across the country, had risen to the occasion to quickly send out accurate information and help anyone and everyone in need, on Twitter. Within minutes of the blasts, hundreds of unnamed citizens had given out their phone numbers and addresses on the social networking site offering complete strangers either a place to come over to stay, a ride back home from work, food, first aid, blood etc. Someone came up with this brilliant idea of collecting this information from the tweets into a Google doc spreadsheet and within one hour there was a list of over 250 people in different parts of Mumbai whom people affected by the blasts could contact for help. This particular document soon went viral and many of you must have noticed it being shared on Facebook too. This is the power of social networking. This is a small trailer of what the citizens of India can do when united for a cause. But to bring about a pathbreaking change such as overthrowing a government, it will not be enough for just the Facebook-Twitter junta of India to unite. It will require encouraging the very large poor and illiterate population of the country too to join in and fight for principles. This will need someone who can bring the whole country together. Something like what Hitler did in post World War I Germany. And in the current scenario, I can think of only one personality in India who has that influence over the entire nation that people will come out and do whatever he asks them to do- yes, Sachin Tendulkar! But I don't see him doing that anytime soon, so we have no option but to wait until that one messiah comes up and unites the entire nation against the corrupt leadership. India needs an Egypt type revolution. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Until then, keep outraging, take out candle marches, talk about "the spirit of Mumbai" and keep paying taxes on time so that the netas can continue to afford to travel with their security cordons and Kasab can enjoy one more serving of his favorite biryani. </div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-88033939684579937402011-06-15T18:47:00.000+05:302011-06-15T18:47:05.346+05:30The India Flight Checklist<i>Genre: Travel</i><br />
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The next time you take a flight to India from any airport in the United States, or vice versa, take this checklist along and cross out each event as it happens. If you happen to cross out everything, be rest assured your flight was normal.<br />
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[ ] A perfectly healthy senior citizen walks up to the airport check-in counter and asks for "free" wheelchair assistance.<br />
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[ ] A queue of 100+ passengers forms at the gate long before boarding is to begin<br />
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[ ] "Pre-boarding for passengers with small kids" is announced and passengers with 15 year old kids queue up to board<br />
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[ ] "Boarding Rows 31 and above" is announced and a passenger with seat in row under 30 walks up to gate, only to be sent back<br />
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[ ] Atleast one passenger approaches to request 'seat adjustment'<br />
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[ ] A Smart Alec reclines his/her seat after Flight Attendants have checked everyone's seats to be upright for takeoff preparation<br />
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[ ] A cellphone rings minutes after captain has announced "Turn off all electronic devices"<br />
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[ ] A passenger stands up and/or walks in the aisle after the plane has started taxiing towards the runway.<br />
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[ ] Queue forms outside restrooms, in spite of "Restroom Occupied" signs illuminated and visible.<br />
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[ ] A passenger takes out a bag of thepla when dinner is served<br />
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[ ] More than half of the total number of meals loaded onboard are labelled AVML (Asian Vegetarian Meal)<br />
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[ ] A passenger asks for two servings of alcohol. At once.<br />
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[ ] The moment the plane touches down, 100 people stand up from their seats and choke the aisles, and stare blankly.<br />
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[ ] A passenger runs and/or pushes fellow passengers on the way to board the bus to the terminal<br />
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Yes we are Indians. We are like that only.The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-45069074662111993772011-04-25T07:18:00.001+05:302011-04-25T09:04:06.560+05:30(Not-so) Tourist Friendly Map of Mumbai<i>Genre: Random</i><br />
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Inspired by Krish Ashok's <a href="http://krishashok.wordpress.com/chennai-map/">Madras Map</a>, presenting a map of Mumbai that is very tourist friendly. Or maybe not.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N9OYtmr_86E/TbTSottxi2I/AAAAAAAAD_o/8Xiclr2SoPI/s1600/MumbaiMap_blog_resized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N9OYtmr_86E/TbTSottxi2I/AAAAAAAAD_o/8Xiclr2SoPI/s1600/MumbaiMap_blog_resized.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a><br />
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<i>Satellite Image Courtesy Google Earth. Edited and used for non-commercial purpose only.</i><br />
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</a></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-30387675136203097982011-04-03T11:54:00.001+05:302011-04-03T20:30:39.107+05:30The Unforgettable Moment<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Sports</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A million articles would be written about India's victory in the 2011 Cricket World Cup, so why am I writing one more? Because, since several years, I have been told stories by my parents and uncles about how the country celebrated when India won the World Cup in 1983, in the era of 60 over cricket and transistor radio commentary. So, now it is my turn to archive memories of this glorious occasion to narrate to my kids twenty years down the line.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The year is 2011. Twenty20 and IPL have begun to dominate the Indian cricket scene. Some people have started calling traditional 50 over ODIs "boring" and "outdated". Enter World Cup 2011, being hosted mainly on Indian soil, with Sri Lanka anfd Bangladesh sharing some matches. That one chance for 50 over cricket to regain its lost popularity. It did, and how! Instead of after-office T20 tamasha, once again the cricket crazy Indians around the world began to spend entire days watching matches, even if it meant bunking college, taking off from office, or waking up at unearthly hours if they are in other timezones, like I did. In spite of being 15,000 km away from the actual action, it has been a memorable World Cup experience. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two days before the start of World Cup, someone mooted the idea of screening World Cup games on campus. Since Star Cricket does not telecast matches in USA, the only legal option was to purchase a subscription of Willow TV. Students were asked to contribute $2 each, and who would have thought that time that these were going to be the best $2 we ever spent. And so the stage was set. Thanks to timezone differences, all India matches, scheduled as day-night encounters, started at 4am local time here. Logistics were worked out, the car-owning students driving remaining fans to campus in the dead of the night, Virginia Tech graciously allowing us the use of TV room at the International Center, and we were set.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first match against Bangladesh saw a small but enthusiastic crowd, complete with Indian flag, vuvuzelas et al. The next match against England was worth every minute spent, ending in a nail biting tie. Every Indian boundary and opposition wicket were cheered, while boundaries by opposition resulted in reaction that is, to put it subtly, not suitable for family audience. And this became the usual story for every game that India played. That is, until the Semi-finals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then came the big one. India vs Pakistan. World Cup Semi-final. Stuff every cricket fan's dreams are made of. Obviously the TV room was not going to be enough for this occasion. So we upgraded to bigger arena. Now it was time to watch on big screen. And it was a weekday. So, classes were bunked (a rare occurence for engineering grad students in a US university), labs were rescheduled, assignements were completed way before deadline, and eight hours on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 were spent in an extreme display of patriotism, furiously cheering every Indian run, and meeting every Pakistani boundary with choicest display of colorful language in the form of the popular chant that goes "Mohali mein aaya bhoot, Pakistan ki...(complete with rhyming profanity)" and not to forget the all time favorite- "Gali gali mein shor hai, Pakistan chor hai!". And at the end of it, when India won, it was celebration like never seen before. I was seeing so many grad students so happy for the first time in my two years here! It was a dream come true. Indian cricket fans attaining nirvana. Nothing could be bigger than this. But wait, there is more!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Come Saturday, April 2, 2011. The Final. India vs Sri Lanka. Waking up at 3.45am, watching Sangakarra make a mockery of the toss bordering on blatant cheating, almost giving up hope before start of game when Dhoni announced Sreesanth is in team instead of Ashwin, heading to the auditorium of the local church on campus in freezing cold, cracking customary Rajinikanth jokes on seeing him in the stadium, watching Jayawardene bat like a hero hell bent on stealing a victory for Lanka, the church people giving a pleasant surprise by graciously offering free breakfast for the hungry crazy students, Malinga getting Sehwag out with scoreboard reading 0/1, The God getting out early with score looking even more ominous at 31/2, Gambhir and Kohli playing a slow sensible inning to stabilize the chase, getting into the typical Wankhede atmosphere with chants of "Sachin Sachin <clap> <clap> <clap>" and "Ganpati Bappa Morya", watching captain Dhoni himself hit that final six into the stands to end it all in the best possible way and breaking out into insane celebration, it has been a truly epic day.</clap></clap></clap></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All these sleepless nights over the past six weeks, listening to Ravi Shastri who goes on and one like a tracer bullet with his torture-on-ears commentary, which included gems like "This stand is veru sunny right now, that's why it has been named Sunny Gavaskar Stand", feeling like pulling hair every time Sanjay Manjrekar said "Tainduulkar", bearing Willow TV's heights-of-cliche advertising, from "gujaratimatrimony.com for NRI Gujaratis like us" to "G1G Insurance for parents visiting USA" to powerpoint-slide ads of estate agents and software consultancies, screaming "Jeetega bhai jeetega, India jeetega!" thousands of times until throat went totally hoarse, all of it seemed totally worth it for that one scene- Indian team carrying The God aka Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar around Wankhede for a victory lap. Absolute speechless moment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have never been that crazy a sports lover that I get emotional over wins and losses, but the sight today, of Sachin running into the field, later draped in an Indian flag made me teary eyed, further pushed by Virat Kohli's soon-to-become-immemorial lines "For twenty one years this man has carried a nation's burden, the least we can do tonight is carry him on our shoulders". </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kfq0FgPEgGM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dhoni lifting the World Cup trophy and the celebration that followed has been an occasion that has overwhelmed my emotions, so much so that for hours after the match I was in a state of clueless limbo as to what exactly happened and why am I grinning for no reason. Of course adding to the fun was the fact that it is the day of International Street Fair on Virginia Tech campus, and after the match, around a hundred Indian students march into the venue, screaming, shouting carrying Indian flags and Dhobighaat Blues, our local band, dedicating songs to the Indian team resulting in massive cheers from the Indian crowd, leaving everyone else at the venue flabbergasted! The day has long come to an end, but the celebrations have not. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It will take some time for the feeling to sink in, but the fact remains - </div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>INDIA. WORLD CHAMPIONS. 2011. \m/</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGvodcjgutE/TZiLdu-csJI/AAAAAAAAD4M/Z7YKPOLwLLk/s1600/WorldCupChampions_filtered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="364" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGvodcjgutE/TZiLdu-csJI/AAAAAAAAD4M/Z7YKPOLwLLk/s640/WorldCupChampions_filtered.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><b><br />
</b></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-65146455227073510192011-03-14T08:12:00.001+05:302011-03-14T08:18:33.112+05:30e-Love Story<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Fiction</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was a calm night in New Delhi. Earlier in the day, hundreds of workers of the city's public transit company had gone on a pre-declared strike complaining about some of their long pending demands, forcing thousands of commuters to look for alternative means. Surya, a final year engineering student at IIT Delhi posted his views about the strike on Facebook. Nisha, an Aerospace Engineering student from the same institute ranted about the troubles she had to face due to the strike in comments to Surya's post. Half way across the world, sitting in his lab on a sunny morning, Aryan was glancing through his Facebook feed when he chanced upon this conversation. An IIT Delhi alumni, now pursuing his PhD in Computer Science at Harvard, he got slightly annoyed with Nisha's comments. Although coming from the same college, he had hardly ever interacted with Surya, and never known Nisha, yet he decided to jump into the discussion with his two cents. Not the one to give up, Nisha replied with more arguments, and Aryan countered them with more of his. Eventually the discussion died down but impressed with Nisha's in-depth analysis, he sent her a Facebook Friend Request, which Nisha promptly accepted. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As it happens with all online friendships, the next step was exchanging email addresses and adding each other on GTalk. A casual conversation at first, they soon realised they share more passions in common than just analysis of Delhi's current affairs. As time passed, Aryan and Nisha started chatting online frequently, about random things under the sun. A month later, Aryan came to Delhi in his summer vacations, and that's when they finally saw each other in person and heard each other's voice. By then, they had already hit off well online, so phone numbers were exchanged and for the time Aryan was in Delhi, they interacted a lot over text messages, rarely talked on the phone, and never met again in person during the remainder of Aryan's stay in Delhi. Once back to Harvard, medium of interaction between Aryan and Nisha went back to GTalk chats. A few months later, it was that time of the year when thousands of engineering students across India apply to colleges in USA for higher education, and look for students already in US to get free career counselling. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Enter Myra, Nisha's best friend and one of those counselling candidates. Nisha introduced her to Aryan and they hit it off right from Day 1. A little counselling, a little timepass, sometimes with Myra, sometimes with Nisha, and often with both, Aryan had now found two new buddies from his alma mater whom he never knew earlier. Between counselling Myra and pursuing his own PhD, with every passing day Aryan started spending more and more time with Nisha, chatting at odd hours about anything and everything from sports to politics to movies to happenings in their personal lives. Come December and Aryan went back to Delhi, and met Nisha at one of IIT Delhi's favorite hangouts, and this time it was Myra whom he met for the first time in person, after extensively interacting via GTalk. The three of them met a couple of times more before Aryan had to return to Harvard. By now the friendship between them had grown strong.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Was it just friendship? Between Aryan and Myra, yes. Between Aryan and Nisha, nobody could tell, including themselves. Engrossed in his love for robotics, drawing and football, Aryan had never dated a girl all his life, never knew what first signs of love feel, and had no idea how to ask a girl out if ever that moment came. Nisha was no different, intellectual and enthusiastic about dancing and painting, but single all through college, with some of her friends even ridiculing her that she was not programmed to be normal and think about guys from a romantic point of view. Meanwhile, the bond between the two had grown so strong that Aryan would wake up to a Good Morning ping from Nisha, and she would sleep only after a Good Night chat from Aryan. All this time, without letting Aryan know, Myra, herself in a steady relationship since three years, was trying to gather hints and nudge Nisha to listen to her instincts. On the other hand, Aryan was confused. He had had momentary crushes on several girls during his college days and none of those girls had shown any interest in response to his hints, and although he was feeling the same about Nisha, he had no idea if this was just one of those one-sided feelings or something more. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One fine day next Spring, Aryan was working in his computer lab, simultaneously chatting with Nisha, as was the usual routine now. Between some random conversations, Nisha asked Aryan casually if he considered her as a girlfriend. Not knowing how to react, Aryan instinctively typed out his inner feelings. Turned out, this is exactly what Nisha was waiting to hear, just not willing to take the first step herself. And so it was done. No candle-light dinner, no romantic proposal, no well-planned dates. All it took was some courage. And GTalk. </div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-75492763956729207732011-03-05T08:14:00.002+05:302011-03-05T08:41:35.713+05:30Rest In Pieces<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Current Affairs</i></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pI93nxtecZw/TXGl5a64r1I/AAAAAAAADuo/LSJPdym4J20/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pI93nxtecZw/TXGl5a64r1I/AAAAAAAADuo/LSJPdym4J20/s1600/images.jpg" /></a>So far in my life, there have been only two people for whom I have wished instant death, because they just don't deserve to be alive. One of the wishes got fulfilled today, so it is time to celebrate. Yes, I am happy <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjun_Singh#Death">Arjun Singh died</a>, and I am not the only one saying this. I was following Twitter updates in the hours after the news of his death broke out, and the ratio of celebratory to condolence messages was almost 100:1. Never before have I seen so many educated Indians celebrate a death. So, why this strange reaction now? Because the man deserved it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the uninitiated, Arjun Singh was the Human Resource Development minister in the Indian government and besides other cases of corruption and manipulative politics including mishandling of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy case, he was a vehemant supporter of caste-based reservations in admissions to presitigious engineering and management colleges of India. Now, per se, it is a good thing to promote education for all, and I am all for it, having myself participated in Teach India program teaching street kids who cannot afford school fees. But the method adopted by Arjun Singh was downright wrong, unfair and implemented for the sole purpose of gaining political mileage. Providing education to backward caste kids is one thing, but keeping aside seats in premier institutes and handing them on a platter to certain students simply because they have a paper that says they belong to a certain caste is outright stupid. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The caste-based reservation system must have spoilt the careers of millions of Indian kids over the years, and I will narrate a couple of examples how- when I applied for admission to VJTI in 2005, out of 60 seats available for Electronics Engineering, only 19 (yes, nineteen only) seats were offered to students on the basis of their merit. A whopping 68% seats were reserved for students under various quotas- female quote, Scheduled Caste quota, Scheduled Tribes quote, Other Backward Class quota and so on. How does this affect a student's career? This is how- the admission to VJTI was through Maharashtra state Common Entrance Test (CET). The cut-off for Open category male students was 191/200. My friend who had scored a healthy 188/200 in CET could not get admission to his course of choice. However, a common friend of ours, with a mediocre score of 110/200 made his way in to the said class. How? Because he held a piece of paper that proclaimed he belongs to the "backward caste". So, was he indeed poor, backward and oppressed? Well, he used to come to college on a swanky bike, armed with an iPod and an expensive cellphone. Imagine yourself in the shoes of that friend whose dream of studying at a premier educational institute, for which he had studied day and night for 2 years, was crushed and several relatively undeserving students walked in, because they had a certain piece of paper. So, if there was no reservation, would he have made it? Quite easily, considering his rank among applicants to the said course was 43. If all the 60 seats were available on the basis of merit alone, he would have accomplished his dream of getting a B Tech degree from VJTI. This is just one example. Cases like this happen every year with students aspiring admission to the presitigious IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and other institutes seeing their dreams crushed, thanks to one man- Arjun Singh.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, if this was unfair, did the students not protest? They did, we all did. Coming together under the banner of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_for_Equality">Youth for Equality (YFE)</a>, a non-commercial non-politically aligned group, comprising of college students and their parents asking for appreciation of merit. Unlike some political groups who resort to violence, demage to public property and vandalism to protest, we chose the democratic way. YFE conducted protest rallies (one of which me and my friends attended in the middle of our final exams), organized awareness drives (in one of which, me and a friend stood a whole day in heavy rain explaining new college applicants the consequences of reservation system), several students at AIIMS went on a hunger strike and YFE submitted petitions in court. And what happened? On orders by the government, <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_police-beat-up-medicos_1029206">students in Mumbai were treated like criminals and beaten up</a> in the middle of the road and the petition in Supreme Court was quashed by Arjun Singh's ministry, and this is when the Chief Justice handling the case famously said "if this is how the government wants to function, why don't we just put a lock on the court?". Having seen all this, it is natural that the news of death of the man responsible for it is received with cheer and happiness. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So here it is, to the man who screwed up India's education system- Rest in Pieces in Hell, and if you plan to go to Heaven, make sure to carry your reservation certificate, because for sure you do not have enough marks to make it through on Merit. *</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>* Last line courtesy my friend Pranay Karwa </i></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-14100232982984059752011-02-24T10:15:00.003+05:302011-02-24T10:57:52.949+05:30The Joys (and Sorrows) of High Flying<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Travel</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">First a confession. Reading about <a href="http://livingindejavu.blogspot.com/2011/02/airplane.html" target="_blank">this envy-worthy achievement</a> of one of my best friends was the inspiration for this piece of long pointless writing that follows.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is a common complaint among normal people that air travel is a long boring annoying task with nothing interesting to look frward to, but I am among those abnormal people who beg to differ- yes, the class of geeks called aviation enthusiasts. Although a recent obsession, my interest in metal birds and the stuff that controls them, in the air and on the ground, has taken off quite steeply. For 21 years of my life, I had never been on an airplane, not even inside an airport, partially due to my deep love for trains and partially due to economic considerations, and now in the last 18 months, I have been on 20 flights, including 10 in the last two months taking me through some of the world's biggest and busiest airports- Heathrow (London), Brussels, JFK, Newark Liberty, La Guardia (New York), Hartsfield Jackson (Atlanta), Logan (Boston) to medium sized ones like Charlotte, Mumbai, Kuwait to the tiny ones like Roanoke in Virginia, USA. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, what is it about planes and flying that is interesting? Everything, well, almost. The fun starts before the actual flight. I love airports, the big ones with multiple terminals and hundreds of check-in counters. Although functionally similar, all of them have a unique flavour and character to them, if you observe carefully. While Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International with its swanky renovated concourses but staff with outdated equipments truly reflects 21st century India- developing but not fully developed yet, London Heathrow is typical British- stylish but toned down while JFK International is completely what New York City is- huge, glamorous, shiny, confusing, crowded, chaotic and full of life. What is boring is that whatever be the character of the airport, you have to do the same boring ritual everywhere- stand in long queues for check-in, hand over your bags into the mouths of conveyer belts running into unknown worlds, take off your shoes, coat, laptop, cell phone, camera, wallet, coins and everything else that a terrorist would NOT use to blow off a plane and walk through a metal detector, and head to the gate area. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The wait at the gate area is one of my favorite parts of air travel, but only if there is a clear view of the apron, taxiways and runways, which is almost always the case, except at some brilliantly designed terminals like Mumbai's International T2 where you have to sit staring at empty walls and LCD TVs playing Rakhi ka Insaaf. For the curious souls like me, the view from the gate area has always had something interesting to offer- like my first sight of the <a href="http://img827.imageshack.us/f/img7157filtered.jpg/" target="_blank">Airbus A380 Superjumbo at JFK</a> or a glimpse of a plane from rare airline like <a href="http://img816.imageshack.us/f/img7229k.jpg/" target="_blank">Royal Brunei at London</a>. Once the flight is announced for boarding, it is a sight worth seeing. If you are at any Indian airport (or New Jersey for that matter), the scene resembles a fish market. Even before the staff fnishes announcing "Flight XXX is ready for boarding", over hundred passengers, sitting scattered across the hall will arrive in lightning speed to form a huge queue, knowing fully well that all airlines board their passengers by row numbers and no plane ever departs without taking the last passenger aboard. My most memorable experience here has been at JFK where a queue of almost 150 people (yes, no kidding!) had formed at the gate and the lady asked passengers in Rows 31 to 37 ONLY to start boarding. I got up from my seat, calmly looked at the queue, and entered the aerobridge first while all the impatient junta, none of whom had seats in Rows 31 to 37 kept waiting!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On all my 20 flights, I have had window seats in the rear half of the plane, which means boarding first and waiting till all the impatient passengers eventually board at the slow rate a single aerobridge allows. Once that is done and the customary safety instructions announced, starts my most interesting part of air travel- the stage from pushback from the gate to takeoff. If you have a little knowledge of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway#Orientation_and_dimensions" target="_blank">runway numbering</a>, air traffic control and a keen observation, the sight from the window is fun to watch, especially at big airports with multiple runways. If you observe carefully, the manner in which ATC manages takeoffs and landings is simply amazing at super-busy hubs, something I have loved admiring. At London Heathrow, it was best use of two parallel runways on display- on Runway 09R, landings were scheduled so optimally that the moment one plane lands and slows down out from the runway onto the taxiway, another one touches down at other end of runway, and this goes on and on. At the same time on Runway 09L, its rapid takeoffs. The moment one plane lifts off the ground, another one is asked to line up on the runway and the line continues. At Boston, it was best use of crossing runways on display- all landings lined up towards Runway 33 while all takeoffs schedule from Runway 27, with both runways intersecting midway. The moment one plane lands on Runway 33, one plane is lined up at end of Runway 27, immediately as the landing plane crosses the intersection point, the plane ready to takeoff is given clearance, and this sequence went on continously. And how can I forget the joy of seeing parallel landings and parallel takeoffs at Atlanta- stuff you can do when you have five parellel runways! Needless to say, after seeing this, I am totally addicted to trying it out myself on <a href="http://www.allfreegames.eu/free-online-games-play-Airport+Madness+3-14599.html target="_blank">Airport Madness</a>. And how do I know all these layouts and runway number etc? Well, the curious cat that I am, I check out the Google Maps image of the airports I am flying out of! (By the way, check out the current <a href="http://maps.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Maps</a> image of Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson International Airport- there are 144 planes lined up at the gates at the same time, incredible by any means!) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first few minutes after takeoff and the last few minutes before landing are my favorite times for photography. Whether day or night, there are always spectacular views to cherish. Be it spotting the <a href="http://img600.imageshack.us/f/img1130z.jpg/" target="_blank">Verrazano Narrows Bridge</a> before landing in to LaGuardia New York or the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L84Ji0AQe7E" target="_blank">flypast over illuminated Manhattan</a> or stunning views of desert at Kuwait or the priceless glimpse of my own Mumbai from the air, I have enjoyed all of it and more. The landing, they say, is a real test of the pilot's skills, and in spite of knowing it is safer than driving, it still gives me goosebumps. The only saving grace is when there are friendly pilots who talk to the passengers before landing, like on my recent trip to Boston, the captain gave all details that normal passengers would not want- "In thirteen minutes we will be landing at Boston Logan International Airport. Currently we are heading west, soon we will take a full U-turn and land from the east on Runway 27. Wind gusts near the ground measure 24 knots, so we will have a bumpy landing. Be prepared." </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once airborne, the only thing to look forward to, or maybe not, is the food. Although I have got everything from Pav Bhaji to Kanda Pohe on international flights, I will not go into the details and rather point out that the "poore-India-mein-world-famous" blogger Krishashok has summed up <a href="http://krishashok.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/asian-vegetarian-hell/" target="_blank">the plane food experience</a> perfectly. And, what about the period when you are actually in air, cruising between takeoff and landing? How is it? Extremely boring and annoying. Period.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-11360226524055617602011-02-14T21:34:00.002+05:302011-02-14T21:47:55.279+05:30The Checklist<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Random</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today as couples around the world celebrate their love (never figured out why they don't celebrate it all year round), I spend the day in the same fashion as I have done for the last 23 years- doing nothing, being single. Fortunately, I have been blessed with some extremely concerned and caring friends who keep on asking me what kind of girl I would like to have in my life (although none of them have ever introduced me to one, but thats a different story). So for the benefit for everyone, once and for all, I present the type of girl I am looking for. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you are female, Indian (ABCD aka American Born Cute Desi girls are allowed), single (or in a relationship but looking for greener pastures) and aged between 20 and 24 years as on today, here is a checklist (along with my reasons for each point). Tick all that applies to you-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
(If you are either male, or a female who does not satisfy the above criteria, still you can continue to read. There is something for you at the end)<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You have an active Facebook account</b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Come on, how technology-alienated and boring life you'd be living if you don't have one</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You can cook, and like cooking decently good vegetarian food</b>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, to mine it certainly is.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You can speak two or more of the following languages- English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi</b><i>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>What? Would we talk in sign language?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You love, or at least don't hate train travel</b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Well, if you don't satisfy this condition, we are likely to have a lot of fights!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] Your wardrobe contains at least 10% and at the most 25% pink clothes.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b></b><i>Any less is impossible to imagine for any normal girl, and any more is overdose of cuteness.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] Your skin tone is any shade between Bipasha Basu and Katrina Kaif</b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>I believe they are the ideal thresholds. Anyone out of these limits doesn't look Indian anymore.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You have at least a basic knowledge of what's going on in the world around you</b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>I don't want you to know by-heart all news daily but if I talk to you today and you say "Egypt? Why, what happened there?" sorry, you are out of contention. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You have at least some interest in cricket</b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>We are Indians, cricket is our religion, so if you cannot tell names of at least five current Indian cricketers and two IPL teams, you are out!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Math has never been my favorite subject, so I don't care about figures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, there are some knock-out conditions. If you satisfy any of these, you are out of the competition-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You smoke. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Smokers are people who have no interest to live but no balls to kill themselves at once. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You religiously follow all saas-bahu TV serials.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Get a life. Seriously.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You are a fan of Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga's fashion sense or Twilight movies </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Get yourself checked by a psychiatrist dear.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the other hand, there are some criteria that can earn you significant amount of positive Brownie Points. Don't ask me reasons for these, just be happy if you can tick off few or all of these-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You love The Big Bang Theory.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You love Star Wars, or sci-fi movies in general</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You have an active well-maintained blog </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You have an active Twitter account</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You love travelling/driving/nature</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You love photography</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You like Hindi music</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>[ ] You are from Mithibai / Agrawal Classes / VJTI / Virginia Tech</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you satisfy 7 or more criteria from the first list and any from the last list, congratulations! You know what your next step should be.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I promised, if you are a male, or a female not satisfying initial criteria, here is what you can do- if have a sister, friend, ex-girlfriend who you believe fulfils these criteria, it would be a great service to humanity if you introduce her to this piece of writing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">P.S.: There is a trump card too- if you are female, Indian (ABCD aka American Born Cute Desi girls are allowed), single (or in a relationship but looking for greener pastures) and aged between 20 and 24 years as on today and already like me for what I am (highly unlikely scenario), it can help in your favor to override some of the above criteria that you may not be satisfying. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
P.P.S.: Even if you are not interested in <i>that</i> sense, be sporty and copy the checklist in Comments and tick the categories you qualify in, just for fun :)<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, the reason for publishing this today-<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Happy Valentine's Day!</span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-58805836782190934002011-02-09T07:25:00.001+05:302011-02-09T08:21:45.475+05:30Tweet, Don't Just Face the Book<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Technology</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It can be made official- since the last six months or so, I was cheating on Facebook. Instead of giving her my undivided attention, I had started hanging out at another equally seductive beauty of social networking- Twitter, and by now I can safely say she has replaced Facebook as my Number 1 source of entertainment, time waste, and in general procrastination. This led to another question- if Twitter is mo much fun, why haven't my friends fallen for it? I have close to 400 "friends" on Facebook, out of which at least 100 are fairly active users- posting status updates, uploading photos, sharing videos, taking pointless quizzes such as 'Which Carbon Atom of Di-chloro-ethylene Are You?' or playing retarded games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars on an almost daily basis, and what about Twitter? Looking at my list, I see close to 50-odd of these friends have Twitter accounts but no more than 4 (yes, FOUR) are active Twitter users! I am no social media or human psychology expert and there are probably 100,000 websites out there comparing Facebook and Twitter (out of which I have read none), but since I have been smitten, I will do the noble duty of convincing as many of my friends to get active on Twitter and waste even more time than they are doing now on Facebook. Here are five reasons why Twitter-shy junta should start tweeting-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1. It's Not About What You Are Doing Now</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Twitter was launched, general impression was that it is a creepy site where creepy people with no better thing to do in life keep writing what they are doing all day, giving other creepy people opportunity to virtually stalk them. This fact is further proved by the fact that every now and then I see a newbie join the Twitter bandwagon and tweet stuff like "Going to meet the professor now" or "Had a sandwich. It was awesome!" This is no longer the case. Why? Because nobody freaking cares! Even if you are as popular as Sachin Tendulkar or Justin Bieber, nobody really is interested in knowing what you are eating or wearing or seeing. Twitter is not about being creepy, but being creative. How? See Reason 2.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2. It's Hilarious and Witty</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I must confess, there have been hundreds of moments when I have smiled, LOLed or ROFLed over creative one-liners, witty puns and sarcastic comments on Twitter over the last six months, although I can't say the same about Facebook. The 140 character limit leaves no scope for long boring posts and all it takes to unleash the creativity is one "trending topic" may it be Rajinikanth or Super Bowl or IPL. In fact, I have realized over a period of time, the best one-liners originate on Twitter, pass on to Facebook, percolate to SMS forwards and die a slow painful death via Orkut and BBMs. Of course a prerequisite to getting this dose of entertainment is that you need to follow the right kind of people. If you just follow your real life/Facebook friends, it may not be that entertaining. Expand your scope. As they say, on Facebook you stalk people you know, on Twitter, people you DON'T know. So, who are these people to follow? The list appears at the end. Please be patient. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>3. News Break on Twitter Before Anywhere Else</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you are the one who cares for whats happening in your country and the world but are too lazy to read newspapers or watch news, look no further. Twitter is your source of everything you need to know, and then some you don't need to know. From 26/11 terrorist attacks to the recent Russia airport blast, from Saina's gold medal to Rahman's Oscar, news stories from myriad sources come to your Twitter timeline faster than it comes on mainstream media, thanks to a nifty feature called Retweet or in Twitter lingo, RT. If someone you are not following but one of your followers is following (like Friends of Friends option on Facebook) writes something interesting, your follower just RTs the tweet and it appears on your timeline too. This effectively forms a virtually infinite network by which you get the most interesting feed from random people you have never heard of. So, that means a lot of spam isn't it? No! Because only things that are really interesting or important gets RTed around enough to reach you! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>4</b>.<b> Interesting Links to Keep You Hooked</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you are one of those people who love seeing videos and reading links that your friends share on Facebook, Twitter is a goldmine for you. Every day I spend considerable time of the day reading some interesting, some humorous and a whole lot of just weird, quirky news, articles, photos, videos, cartoons, comics and what not, from sites I would have never gone on my own, because I did not even know they exist! One might argue that why do I even need to know all these stuff? Well, I don't. But it serves as a great refreshment in between boring sessions of assignments or work.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>5. Interact With Your Favorite Stars</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Several dozen Bollywood stars, Hollywood stars, cricketers, footballers, pop stars and anyone who is a celebrity of any kind has a Twitter account where he/she posts updates about their work and life and occasionally shamelessly indulging in an overdose of publicity for their upcoming movies etc. Unlike their websites and Facebook fan pages that are professionally maintained, I have noticed many celebrities actually maintain their Twitter accounts personally, evident from not-so-politically-correct messages and unglamorous un-photoshopped photos that wouldn't make it to the magazines and newspapers that they occasionally post on Twitter. This also means, Twitter is probably your best probability of getting a one-on-one conversation with a celebrity, may it be as short as one line reply. My high point so far has been getting a personal reply from Sonakshi Sinha (if she can considered a celebrity, that is!). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, now that you are probably convinced into wasting more of your time by getting active on Twitter, here is a short Beginner's Guide of few people you should start following for some interesting entertainment. This is just a small starter, from an Indian point of view, and there are several interesting people around whom I don't follow yet. These people are Tw-elibrities, or Twitter Celebrities- people who are common folk like us, students, IT professionals, businessmen/women etc who have carved fame for themselves simply by being a great source of Twitter entertainment. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/gkhamba">@gkhamba</a> - A part-time stand-up comedian from Delhi, this guy is a laugh riot. Not always using family-friendly language, but his sense of humor and impromptu witty takes on everything from current affairs to movies will leave you in splits. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/fakingnews">@fakingnews</a> - As the name suggests, this guy maintains the popular website Faking News, which in my opinion is the best parody news site I have ever come across, and his tweets are equally hilarious</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/eyepeeyell">@eyepeeyell</a> - If you like cricket, especially IPL, even one bit, this is one person (nobody knows real identity of this account) you just can't afford to miss. Using extremely expletive-filled language at times, he generates humor like no other from cricket matches and cricketers' lives. And with IPL just round the corner, he is gonna get super active!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/krishashok">@krishashok</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/greatbong">@greatbong</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/thecomicproject">@thecomicproject</a> - Popular bloggers and not as hilarious as the guy above, but these men have some really interesting stuff to share and witty takes on several topics under the sun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/sunainak">@sunainak</a> - If you thought comedy is mainly a male-domain, think again. This Punjabi kudi can be sweet and girly at times and at other times crack some extremely good (read: bad!) PJs and one-liners. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/HelloMeHippo">@HelloMeHippo</a> - The cutest 'animal' on Twitter. Doesn't tweet much, but when he does, in his inimitable kiddy broken-English, it is just too adorable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> So, if you are wondering, "where are the celebrities? They are the ones I want to follow". There are way too many out there to enlist, but some I follow are-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/chetan_bhagat">@chetan_bhagat</a> - The Five Point Someone guy. Many Twitter celebrities generate their humor by screwing case of this man, but he himself has interesting stuff to say too.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/sachin_rt">@sachin_rt</a> - Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Enough said. Why do I follow him? Because he is The God. Period. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you are male, just for the eye-candy factor you probably want to follow <a href="http://twitter.com/priyankachopra">@priyankachopra</a> (Priyanka Chopra), <a href="http://twitter.com/bipsluvurself">@bipsluvurself</a> (Bipasha Basu), <a href="http://twitter.com/realpreityzinta">@realpreityzinta</a> (Preity Zinta) and ONLY if you are a guy, you probably would like to follow <a href="http://twitter.com/SherlynChopra">@SherlynChopra</a> too, just for the pics she uploads! :P</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apart from real celebrities, there are fake celebrities- parody accounts, who are more hilarious than the real celebrities. Some I follow are-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/sheldoncooper">@sheldoncooper</a> - Bazingga! You know what to expect!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://twitter.com/DepressedDarth">@DepressedDarth</a> - For Star Wars fans- imagine Darth Vader hitting a period of depression, bored of the dark side, venting out his frustration. Get the idea what to expect!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And then, there is one rather interesting "person" to follow - <a href="http://twitter.com/kweezzz">@kweezzz</a> - This is not a person. This account is created simply to host interesting quizzes. Anyone who wants to host a quiz on any topic under the sun from American History to Identify Actresses From Their Legs can contact the admins and get access to this account for a certain time slot in which he/she posts a series of quiz questions that anybody around the world is free to answer by just replying. Quizzes are held almost daily and usually the first three people to reply with correct answers score points. The prize is no money, just recognition and a sense of accomplishment. I shall humbly announce that I have finished on the podium in two kweezzz so far- one on India Travel and another on American Eateries!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think this is enough to get you started. Of course, there is one more guy you probably want to follow- the one who wrote all this crap. Yes, my Twitter handle is the same as the title of my blog. Easy to search. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>PS: Twitter has neither paid me anything nor offered me a job for writing this.</i></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-73265178901240967542011-01-22T12:21:00.000+05:302011-01-22T12:21:43.490+05:30An Open Letter to Director of VJTI<div style="text-align: justify;">Dear Sir with very long Surname,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I passed out from VJTI with a B. Tech degree in June 2009, so technically I am an alumnus, but emotionally still a student. I happened to visit my alma mater this month after an eighteen month gap and was shocked to see not one, but three completely unnecessary changes-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">First of all, what was the need to start moral policing and enforce an illogical dress code prohibiting girls from wearing anything shorter than full pants? You may argue that you don't want students to come to the prestigious engineering institute wearing indecent clothes, but have you ever stepped out in the Quad and examined the general dressing trend among VJTI students? In my four years, most of it spent in the Quad and canteen, I have never seen any girl in VJTI campus wearing anything that can be considered even close to indecent. One popular argument of political parties enforcing dress code in Indian colleges is that they do not want students to get distracted. If that is the excuse you are going to give and if you really want to improve concentration of students, I suggest you invest your time, money and energy in employing good teachers and improving lab infrastructure. Professors who cannot speak two sentences in correct English and lab equipment fit to be preserved in museum are the reasons why students do not concentrate in class, not girls wearing three-fourths and knee length skirts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Second totally unnecessary exercise started recently is making every student sign a register every time he/she wants to exit the campus with name and reason for leaving. What purpose does this criminal waste of paper, ink and time serve? Have you even once gone through the register and analyzed the reasons why students exit campus during college hours? If you do, you will find most of the students go out to get Xerox copies of assignments and class notes. Is the register meant to serve as a deterrent to this practice? If yes, have you wondered why this practice goes on in the first place? Instead of maintaining a pointless register, why isn't money and energy spent on training professors to teach the students in such an interesting manner that they actually feel like doing their assignments on their own instead of copying from Xerox notes? I am pursuing Masters from a US university and in the last eighteen months I have not copied or Xeroxed a single homework or assignment, something that students, including myself, do regularly in VJTI. Why? Is it because we love copying and are lazy to ? No. It is because most of the times the professor has been either too boring or unsure of his own concepts and as a result, has not taught his topics in a way that students would understand and be interested. So, the majority of the class resorts to copying assignments from a chosen few in the class who studied and understood the concepts on their own, without help from the institute or professors. VJTI, as you are aware, admits the brightest minds from across the state, and these students, if given equally bright professors and interesting study techniques, would not resort to copying and faking assignments.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Third change that I do not understand is the recent paranoia of security threat to the institute. When there are other pressing needs like purchasing new appartus for laboratories, why was a large sum of money spent on fortifying the campus, which already had a decent boundary wall with a new boundary wall higher than the International Border between India and Pakistan? Agreed we live in difficult times and security is a concern, but building that Great Wall of VJTI serves no practical purpose. I can even now point out a dozen other ways a potential terrorist can still enter the campus if he wants to. Another side effect of this paranoia is the recent diktat banning students from taking photorgraphs on campus! Today when most teenage psychology experts encourage students to take as many pictures as possible of their college days to serve as fond memories helping in hard times in later life, and I have experienced this is true, having gone through the collection of thousands of photos of my VJTI days every time I feel low, you are depriving the current students of this opportunity citing security risk. Again, in this age of Google Earth and hi-resolution satellite images, do you really think someone with a malicious intention against VJTI will rely on group photos taken by students to plan his attack? Highly unlikely. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">These are small things, but what saddens me is that the administration of my beloved institute is focussing its time, money and energy on skewed priorities. It would be great if this effort is rather channlized into the right direction to reinstate VJTI's position to the claimed title of "premier engineering institute in Maharashtra state."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sincerely,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A proud VJTI alumnus </div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-56632122348620319432011-01-03T21:54:00.000+05:302011-01-03T21:54:08.555+05:30First Encounter of the Cop Kind<div style="text-align: justify;">Genre: Random</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This post is predominantly in Hindi because English translation would kill the effect.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Three days into the new year, its time for our first of the usual evening-timepass-at-railway-station sessions of the year. I head out, with a friend on vacation from Australia, to a small station just outside Mumbai. Half an hour into the talks, the Delhi bound Rajdhani Express blasts past at full speed, and having my camera, I just point it in its direction for a quick photo. Few minutes later, a police constable approaches.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cop: Yeh tum log yahaan kya kar rahe ho?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Me: Kuch nahi. Timepass. Mera yeh dost bahar se aaya hai toh usko ghumaane laaya hoon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cop: Tumne Rajdhani ka photo liya? Humne camera me dekha. Kyun liya?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>(I wonder- WTH! When did they put CCTVs here!)</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Me and Friend: Aise hi. Yaadein. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cop: Police station chalna padega. Sahab ko baat karna hai aapse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And so we start the long walk with the cop to a tiny police chowki just outside the station platforms. The constable asks us to sit inside a small room and wait for the "sahab" to return. After ten minutes, I see a typical government style safari suit clad man walk in, he has yet not seen my Australian NRI friend. He is talking outside the room we are sitting in.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Safari Suit Man (SS): Kaun hai voh log?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cop: Foreigner hai</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SS <i>(in an excited loud voice)</i>: FOREIGNER hai?!? Kya baat hai!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Safari Suit enters, looks at my 6 foot tall, well built friend and mellows down.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SS <i>(in stern tone)</i>: Haan, toh tum logo ne Rajdhani ka photo liya. Kyun liya? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Friend: Sahab, main NRI hoon. Australia se aaya hoon. Udhar ke log hamesha India ko gaali maarte hai, bolte hai India bahut ganda hai, undeveloped hai, toh maine socha India ki mast wali train ka photo leke unko dikhaunga India ka progress.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hearing this, Safari Suit's eyes light up, big smile appears on his face.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SS: Kya?? Aisa bolte hai voh log? Vaise photo kidhar hai? Dikhao mujhe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Me: Theek hai, sir, yeh hai voh photo. Main yeh ek photo delete kar deta hoon, aur bas matter khatam. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SS: Nahi nahi, delete mat karo. Yeh photo jaake dikhao unko. Zaroor dikhao.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>First shot, on the dot. Time to chane-ke-jhaad-pe-chadhao the Safari Suit saheb. So, we start-</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Friend: Arre sahab, voh toh kuch nahi, udhar ka train system toh ekdum ganda hai. 20-30 minute me ek train aata hai aur kabhi bhi cancel ho jaata hai</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SS: Voh log khud ko samajhte kya hai! Idhar dekho, 1000 train chalta hai ek din mein. Achcha ek cheez batao, udhar ke police kaise hai? Humne suna udhar bahut Indian log ko sab maar daalte hai</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Friend: Arre sahab, udhar ka police apne comparison mein kuch nahi. Udhar koi bhi police ko sunaake jaata hai, idhar aap Mumbai police ko koi gaali diya toh aap sun loge kya?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SS <i>(gets excited)</i>: Sawaal hi nahi! Idhar public mein hi usko maar padegi.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Now this is getting fun. I decide its time I join in too.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Me: Sahab, main America se abhi aaya hoon. Pata hai udhar ke log mereko poochte hai Mumbai me sirf jhopadpatti aur khet hote hai kya? Unko Slumdog Millionaire wala image hi dikhta hai.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SS: Slumdog Millionaire! Saala sab uska galti hai. China ka picture dekho, voh log kabhi China ka garibi nahi dikhate, sirf mast road aur airports batate hai. Hum log hi aisa ganda dikhate hai.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By now all other cops in the office have heard this conversation and join in one by one..</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cop2: Sir, aap yeh jo kar rahe ho barabar kar rahe ho. Un logo ko dikhana maangta India kya cheez hai!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cop 3: Haan haan, udhar jaake apne vatan ko yaad rakha hai aapne, bahut achcha kiya.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The conversation continues for the next 30 minutes, with curious cops asking about everything from crime rates in Australia to relationship between Australia and New Zealand to the inevitable question I have encountered everywhere- "Achcha toh udhar America ya Australia me padhai ka scope kaisa hai? Mere bete ko bhejna hai mujhe!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By now, we the "convicts" are completely in control of the situation and the entire police station is in awe of "foreign ki baatein". Taking this opportunity, we decide to cut it out. As we decide to leave, Safari Suit gives the farewell speech- "Sahab, aap aaram se ghumo, photos kheecho, meri taraf se sab permission hai. Koi tension nahi leneka"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the cop, looking at my Aussie friend all this time, finally breaks his silence- "Sir, kuch bhi bolo, aapka body mast hai. Ekdum hero type!"</div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-75740448551550908672010-12-23T07:51:00.001+05:302010-12-23T08:18:44.135+05:30Hello! This is Customer Torture Service<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Humour</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If I was asked to choose one way to most effectively torture terrorists, I would without a doubt suggest putting them on the phone line with the so-called Customer Care service numbers of an American bank or credit card company. They have a foolproof four-layered torture mechanizm in place that would freak out everyone from the most calm minded yogi to the most hardcore terrorists. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><u><b>Layer 1: The Number Game</b></u></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first challenge lies in figuring out the phone number, since they love to mention it using letters for numbers, like 1800-MY-BANK-SUCKS. Dial the number and the Interactive Voice Response starts the torture procedure-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Welcome to We Suck Bank. We proudly present to you the Super Platinum Credit Card with $1 million credit limit and no monthly charges. For more information and to register for this card, please go to w w w dot wesuckbank dot com. To continue in English, press 1. Esto perso hola kushti espanialo, hesta 2. Luga buga zhingala maka chuka zulu, pangu 3."</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You press 1.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"<b>Thank You. For account information, press 1. For balance information, press 2. For information on credit cards, press 3. For information on car loans, press 4...blah blah blah..., For information on Angelina Jolie's latest child, press 37. To repeat this information, press star."</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By this time, you are confused.. what did I call up for? <i>"Was it 2.. no wait it was 3..no no I remember it was 1." </i>You press the number and it takes you to the next level.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Layer 2: Speak Up Baby</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Off late, the banks have taken a fancy to using voice recognition software, and with it begins new level of torture-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Thank you. To login, please speak your 16 digit credit card number, 24 digit account number and 10 digit cellphone number, one digit at a time."</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You take ten minutes to speak out each number, and just when you thought it was over, it starts again-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Thank You. To continue, please speak one of the following options. To check your balance, say balance. To request a statement, say request statement. To make a payment, say make payment. To report a lost card, say lost card....blah blah...For more options, say more options."</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You try to gather the best American accent and say- <i>"Make payment"</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Sorry. I did not understand that. Please say again."</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"MAKE PAYMENT"</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Sorry I did not understand that. Please say again." </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"MAKE. PAYMENT."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After 15 trials, <b>"Sorry I did not understand that. Please say again."</b> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"SCREW YOU!</i>"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Thank You. Please wait while I transfer your call to our Customer Service Executive"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And here begins the next level.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Layer 3: The Eternal Wait</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The annoying 'On Hold' music starts... <b>Tu ru ru ru tu ru ru ru ru...ru ru ru ru.... ru ru ru ru...</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After two minutes, the music fades and you feel the person has come on line, but no!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"<b>Did you know you can make your payments online at our website w w w dot wesuckbank dot com! Also we proudly present to you the Super Platinum Credit Card with $1 million credit limit and no monthly charges."</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And the music starts again... <b>Tu ru ru ru tu ru ru ru ru...ru ru ru ru.... ru ru ru ru..</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After 30 minutes of wait, just when you fall comfortably asleep, a voice is finally heard </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Hello my name is Kathy and how may I help you today?"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yayyy!!! A HUMAN BEING finally!!! You excitedly start telling your problem- <i>"See, I have a savings account in your bank, and..." but you are interrupted-</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Sir, before we proceed, for your security, I would ask you a few questions"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And here begins the next level of torture</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Layer 4: Questions and Questions</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Sir, for your security, may I please know your first name, last name, father's middle name, mother's maiden surname, last five digits of your Social Security Number, roll number of your third crush in fifth grade class and molecular weight of your favorite hydrocarbon compound?"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first challenge here is trying to remember all questions, and then comes the challenge of answering them all. You spend ten minutes in answering all questions and explaining why you called up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>"Sure sir. We can help. Please wait as I transfer your call to the specialist"</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <b>Tu ru ru ru tu ru ru ru ru...ru ru ru ru.... ru ru ru ru... </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And suddenly..*SNAP*. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Disconnected. Last Call Time: 2 hours 48 minutes 36 seconds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">GODDAMNIT! </div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-56194967399155223822010-12-15T06:15:00.001+05:302010-12-15T06:17:45.957+05:30Of ABCDs and NRIs<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Humor</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A glance at my Facebook timeline or GTalk statuses of friends currently would give one an impression that the year is 2012 and the dreaded Apocalypse is nearing, what with countdowns of "X Days to go!" type all over the place; but worry not- this is just the annual migration season when thousands of Indian students from universities all over USA make a Swades trip. For the benefit of those who are making their first trip to India after coming to USA, here are some (not-so) useful tips on how to act like a seasoned NRI or ABCD as desired appropriate-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A week before heading home, go to Dollar Tree / Wal-Mart and pick up random cheap stuff like perfumes, Nivea cold creams and Toblerone chocolates to give to friends and relatives who will pretend to happily receive them as if they have never seen these items in India.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The moment you land at the airport, complain- "Oh man! It's so hot!", even if your flight arrives at 3am and the outside temperature is 15 degree C. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the way home, exclaim "Oh My God! Why the hell is there a cow on the road!". Yes, do it even if you have seen hundred cows on the road before heading to USA.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Crib about the infrastructure- the airport is so messy, roads are so dirty, air is so polluted, anything.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even if it is 30 degrees C, go out wearing a GAP sweatshirt (No, don't tell me you don't have one- ever since SRK sported it in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, every damn Indian worth his name living in USA owns GAP clothing :P)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When visiting relatives, act extremely melodramatic traditional. Even if you have never ever done it when you were in India earlier, greet all elders with namaste and touch their legs to get blessings (and money!)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Use random American words in conversation. When someone asks "<i>chai thanda kuch loge?</i>", say you will have "soda" or "decaf coffee". </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Buy some stuff from your local kirana store (not supermarkets) and offer your credit card for payment. When denied, express surprise- "What! You don't accept credit cards? India is still so underdeveloped!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Act excessively concerned about hygiene. When at a local udipi restaurant, ask if the cook is wearing hand gloves and hairnet and if the food has been prepared using mineral water.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Compare and praise American transport facilities with Indian counterparts. While on any road, point out "Look at all these potholes. In America, the highways are so smooth. Its so much fun driving at 75 miles/hour on I-95", knowing fully well that nobody else cares a damn or knows what is I-95.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last and most important point- talk in a fake American accent, even when speaking Hindi.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * * * *</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>PS: OK, everyone heading home this month- Aisa kuch mat karna. Aaram se ghar jaao, road pe pani puri khao, rickshaw me ghumo aur masti karke aao. Have a safe flight and enjoy holidays! </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>* * * * *</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-86425266180539139592010-12-04T21:43:00.001+05:302010-12-04T21:46:37.059+05:30Weather Talks<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Random</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Numerous Hollywood movies and American sitcoms send out an impression that talking about weather can be a good conversation starter. In US, probably yes, but does it work everywhere?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>In USA</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 1</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Nice weather today..</div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: Yeah, sunny and 70 degrees..I love this.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 2</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Man, this weather sucks</div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: Oh yea totally! Yesterday it was so nice and sunny and now these rains..</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 3</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Damn, its cold today</div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: Hell yeah..those rains yesterday were bad, and now this snow. Sucks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 4</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Hey, nice to see good weather today</div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: Yeah, after that snow yesterday, feels good to have the sun back.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, try the same <b>in India-</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 1</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Man, these rains.. feels good</div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: Yeah, I like the smell</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 2</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Nice rains today</div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: Hmmm</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 3</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Yaar, the weather looks so good with these rains</div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: ....</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Day 4</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A: Man, look at the sky...its gonna rain.. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">B: Abbe BH#^$%*! August ke mahine me har roz baarish hi hoga na. Kya roz roz ek hi baat paka raha hai.. CH$^%*&!</div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-21079453848053623602010-11-20T06:52:00.006+05:302010-11-20T07:07:05.790+05:30Mumbai Local 101<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>A (not-so) comprehensive guide to Mumbai local train travelling for newcomers.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Objective:</b> At the end of the course you will have acquired the skills to ride and survive the Lifelines of Mumbai, or will flee away forever. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Pre-requisites</b>: Common Sense (yes, a bit too much to ask for, but it is required)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><u>Before the Journey.</u></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Make sure you are mentally and physically prepared. Wearing an armored suit and helmet is recommended, but not necessary. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Buy a ticket. It is very easy. Each station has around ten ticket windows out of which seven are permanently closed, two will have “Lunch Break” at any given time of the day and the remaining one will have a short queue of approximately 158 people. Once you reach the counter, remember the staff is a big fan of Obama- they demand change. All the time. You can bypass this procedure by charging your way ahead of the queue and asking for Coupon booklet, the probability of availability of which is 0.0016 and if you get one, remember the Coupon Validating Machine is officially on the UNESCO list of endangered species. Alternately, you can be tech-savvy and buy the Smart Card and head to the corner where you see a person groping and pinching a touchscreen all over the place. This activity might give you some pleasure, but does not give a ticket. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now that you have acquired a ticket, it is time to find your train. Locate an indicator board and search for train to your destination. There are not many options to get confused. You just need to know some letter codes- A, Ad, An, B, Ba, Bo, Bl, Bs, By, C, D, Di, G, K, Kp, M, N, S, St, T, Tl, V to name a few and remember that he train can be 9-car, 12-car or 15-car; Slow, Fast or Semi-Fast (occasionally Double Fast and no more Bada Fast) and that it can be on either Western, Central or Harbour (which is also Central but not quite Central) line. Once done, go to the appropriate platform. You will find several passengers striving hard to improve India’s medal tally at Olympics by practicing high-jump over fences between tracks and long jumps across open gutters. Resist the temptation to join the noble cause. Use the bridge. Look at the indicator boards on the platform. You will see names of several places lit up. Locate your destination. If it is lit up, your train will stop (if you are on Central line) or will not stop there (if you are on Western line). If nothing is lit up, it simply means rats ate up the wires. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><u>Boarding the train</u></b>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Walk along the platform and smartly choose your position. If you are male, do not stop by near the large group of young women. There are better places in the city to flirt/chance maaro/ogle (discussion beyond the scope of this course). Also, do not stand in front of a pillar colored in funky red and yellow stripes. No, it is not a message from aliens nor location of an African dance party. Once the train is in sight, you can decide to don one of the following three roles-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1. Super Man</b>: Hold your belongings close to your chest and jump right in before the train stops. It requires accurate calculation of velocity and your trajectory needs to be at an angle of tan-1 (0.1032) w.r.t the direction of motion of the train, failing to achieve so can result in you banging against a window instead of a door. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2. Mango Man</b>: Like the <i>aam aadmi</i> of India, stay passive. Do not do anything. The crowd around you will drag you inside. Simple and easy. Remember to wriggle yourself out of the wave at the right time, lest you end up inside one of the reserved corners of daily gangs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>3. Fattu Man</b>: Stay at the back of the platform. Watch the entire crowd make their way in. Watch the train depart without you. Repeat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><u>Inside the Train</u></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you tried strategy #1 to board, there is a 2.95% probability that you will manage to catch a seat. If so, yes it is an event worthy of updating your Facebook and Twitter status proclaiming the same. If ten people gather around you asking you to vacate the seat, do it. Resistance is futile, unless you want to experience being lifted, passed over several people and thrown out of the coach. If you have to stand, find a place that falls in the area of operation of the fan, which extends upto 2 inches from its perimeter. But this does not mean you stand in the middle of the door passage. Doing so will give you a first hand experience of how electrons and protons feel inside the Large Hadron Collider. If you are in the middle of a densely packed crowd and see a food item such or sweets passed to you, eat it. Consider it “Bonus level”. Do not doubt its origin or intention. They’ll find your lack of faith disturbing and appropriate action will be taken. If you are a keen observer, you will notice several men moving back and forth in suspicious patterns. No, they are not doing what you think. A majority of the crowd is straight. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are protocols you need to strictly follow. If you are in a general second class compartment, if there are 3 passengers on a seat, you can make hand gesture along with use of the phrase “<i>Boss, thoda…</i>” and claim access to 3 inches worth of seat to rest your (half a) posterior on. However, doing the same in First Class will result in expulsion. If you are in the Ladies coach (No! If you are male, you cannot be in the Ladies coach) you have to verbally “reserve” a seat for yourself by asking every sitting passenger which station she is getting off and laying claim to that seat. Grabbing a seat reserved by others will result in an unacceptable level of noise pollution. Number of people allowed to stand at the door is fixed at 4 for First Class, 5 for second class, 6 and more for Virar locals in peak hours. Number of people allowed to sit on the long seat at the end of the coaches is fixed at 7 for non-peak hours, 8 for peak-hours, 9 and more for office hours when atleast 54% of the occupants are known to each other. These figures have been arrived at after years or optimization and are not variable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><u>Alighting from the Train</u></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like boarding, for alighting too you can choose to don one of the three roles, but with different outcomes. If you decide to use the Super Man approach and push your way through the crowd, you will be allowed to go ahead without warning until you reach the open door and eject yourself out even before the train has reached a platform. This can be done only once per lifetime. If you decide to be the Fattu Man and stay put in your place for too long, Newton’s First Law applies and you will find yourself inside the train until it reaches the yard at midnight. The Mango Man approach has the maximum probability of safe ejection. The wave will push you out, provided you start at the correct location. To avoid the catastrophe that the entire wave of crowd gets off but you do not move at all because you were in the wrong wave, always ask the row ahead of you “Bhaisahab, Dadar?” if you want to get off at Dadar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><u>Additional Info</u></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Several finer points and a list of FAQs will be provided fr this course at a later date.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><u style="font-weight: bold; ">Appendix</u><b> - </b><i>Pain in the ass</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If this course was too difficult to understand and you wish to have a less complicated solution, you need to be a movie star in which case a part of the coach will be vacated; or the <a href="http://theblueindian.blogspot.com/2010/02/taking-us-for-ride.html">heir to the Royal Family of India</a> in which case you will be allowed to travel in First Class on Second Class ticket and train diverted to platform of your choice. For others, Bon Voyage! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><center><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/stUPYyJqx1Y?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/stUPYyJqx1Y?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></center>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125121660197544272.post-86137604751301556992010-11-12T04:06:00.001+05:302010-11-12T04:08:56.848+05:30SubWay Special<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Genre: Random</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At a SubWay restaurant in Roanoke, I see this sign-</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"<b>Today's Special Meal: Buffalo chicken Sub + Drink + 2 Cookies - $5.08</b>"</div><div style="text-align: justify;">(Without the offer, it would amount to $ 6.38)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Me:</b> Can I get the Buffalo Chicken in the special meal substituted with Veggie Delite? (both cost the same)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Employee:</b> Sorry, the rules given to me say only Buffalo Chicken Sub can be given in the offer</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Me: </b>OK, fine. Give me Buffalo Chicken Sub. Without the meat. And, I'd like lettuce, onions, olives, banana pepper, green pepper and cheese on it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bingo! Got what I wanted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>The Wandererhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03141364930661222842noreply@blogger.com4