India Trip And Back - Oct 2008

Wow! I was going to India after 10 months of staying in the country which ruled by dadaji and unke dadaji for 200 years. And why was I going back, definitely it was least well planned. Was told by my manager in Barclays account which I was to join after 1 month that I might not have any work for next month so why not go for a leave the next month, so that is what I did. I booked my return ticket for next week itself, cost a few hundreds pounds more, but who cared when u were going back to India for returning back to UK, now that was important factor which motivated me in buying a couple hundred pounds on gifts, a couple hundred on tickets from Southhall travel and couple more on a HP laptop. Well the last one on pick list for shopping, but who cares when you are coming back.

Train to Manchester Airport

The flight was from Manchester at 9 in the morning, and to go to Manchester Airport I have booked a National Railways for 3 in the morning. I, actually We, reached at the Leeds Train station on time but the train was cancelled, they have booked Train buses for us, they are actually buses only to ferry the people when the train cancels, and it seems to me that it is quite regular here, because they have a bus-stand decided to the travellers who have booked the train tickets but are ferried to Manchester by bus, because they don't ply these trains at night or so it seems to me. And agin proved by the point that after I was ferried by the Train Buses or as they are called and by the time I returned back to UK, I heard that everyone who had to go to Machester by night on train had to be take these buses instead.

The Train Bus

So I was ready to board the bus, the Train Bus, and the first one came within minutes, and I was the last one not to board it. I also did not insisted to let me in that bus, because I wanted to travel cosily in the second bus, where I would be the first passanger to board it. So I waited for the second bus to come and waited and waited and waited. And there was no bus in sight, it was an hour of wait in that cold night that I started cursing my decision to miss that last bus and the passengers started cursing the rail people and the rail people were probably cursing the bus guys and bus guys I donno whom. It wasn't that I was going to lose any flight or so, infact once I reached the Manchester airport I had to wait for another two hours before I boarded my flight. I had ample time that even if I started walking I could have caught the flight with hours to spare. But, to our good luck and before the Yorkshire mob lost their complete patience, the bus came and gone was all the cameraderie and entiquette I have kind of started associating and swearing for the Leeds junta, and I would have been the last again not to enter this bus as well, had I not regained my Indianess and pushed my way to enter the gate, and if I would not have handed over my baggage to my friends who came to see me off in this chilling weather. The English might be actually amaged to see 10 people come to see off a single guy, but then we keep the spirit and tradition of India alive in hearts always.

Inside The Bus

The bus driver, an afro-anglican was reluctant to take me to Manchester Airport because I was the only passanger after Manchester Picadilly, and the airport was an hour drive from there. When we reached Manchester it was 5 in the morning and there was no taxi in sight, and I would have been completely busted had he not actually taken me to the airport. But he did.

But that was the gentler part of the story. The more funny was inside the bus on our way to Manchester, because I was sitting with a drunkard. Actually, quite a number of seats were empty and lots of pretty people around, but when your have been so lucky the entire night you cannot blame anyone else for it. So after half and hour or so the entire bus was almost empty at Huddersfield. The only surviving passanger were me and my mate. Few girls at the back, a guy in the seat opposite the aisle and a couple in the front.

So after testing my patience for full 10 mins, I completly gave up, jumped on my seat, pulled down my hand baggage from under the leg rest and put it in the seat in fornt of me. Till that time the drunkard was half in aisle and half on the seat, the guy in the next seat opposite the aisle helped me pull down the drukard and I was safely excorted out into my new seat. By the end of journey though, the drunkard was sleeping in the aisle itself.

Manchester Airport

There were not much stories except that I travelled all the way to the other side of the visitor lounge to try out the disabled toilet, when I could have just looked around in the first place and could have easily and comfortably located what I was looking for. And the fact that since my cell phone had stopped working the previous night only, with this peculiar problem that I was not able to hear people who called me but my voices never reached them, so I had to sms my family in India so eager and waiting. I bought a sandwich and munched it till the last breadcrumb's last bite. Browsed around the duty free, tried a few pefumes, read the titles of a few books. And finally waited at the Qatar Airways Line to be excorted in.

Inside the Qatar And at Doha

The Qatar Airways experience was good, the entire ambience was maroon that's their official color. I got my non-vegetarian food which was delicious, and that was the last time I got non-vegetarian food on Qatar Airways, because in some fit of anguish I have asked my travel agent in London who booked my return flight to serve me indian veg diet. So I was given special care by the Qatar airhostesses who were ready with my vege food before anyone was served in the entire airplane. Wow great service, but not for me. And I finally landed in the desert capital Doha. That was where I for the first time used my laptop on a Airport hotspot, cool!!!

Then there was this Diwali celebrations in Delhi with my family which I enjoyed, and the great thinking and revelations about where I should be heading. But then things started to work for me. And I was back in Leeds again. In India, I did enjoy my visit to Jaipur, Pushkar and Ajmer.

The world is revealed for me now. There are few things that still elude me, and i will try my level best to get it, not because of anything but only because it will make me happy. And that is why I am here for. The first thing I need to understand is that every things which you like and want is achivable. And to remember it and next not to forget that you will have to work to achieve want you want. So get it, because you deserve it!!

GoLive!! CSA

I am excited because my effort of one year is going to have a logical conclusion. Millions of people all over the country are going to start using the application I have been part of during development and deployment over the network.

So our bosses came up with this nine day deployment drama which started some days back and will continue for a few more days. This is my first time at live deployment and GoLive thing, so I quite not because of some emotional attachment for my effort, naay! But more some because I should be excited because of the experience being my first kind. But then my experience at Buffalo was also the first time, but I kind of outsmarted the situation there, and outshone all my expectation of how I will react in such a situation. But there, for some reason I was really really really overconfident, so much so that I kind of forgot to enjoy the moment. Although I did do thing I guess more from academic purposes and not for any other reason, so the theme of that thing never settled in my mind which apparently was a good thing to happen.

Returning back to the GoLive!! event, I still wondering why isn't the kind of joy I feel if the GoLive!! things goes without any major hitches, I don't somehow see in the people around me. Maybe because it's not their first time, maybe!! So, there is every drama in the GoLive!! there are Wii gaming consoles around, there is lot of food to devour, morning breakfast, lunch, pizzas in evening and offcourse the dinner with all the best of Indian cuisine thrown in for both the races, Asian more precisely Indian and English. And there are occasional nightouts, where in one can watch all the movies in the world one can, if there any no major hitches or bugs to chase away.

Yes!! we are indeed going live, it seems and we will succeed.

Sleep Therapy despite Spring Theory

I have fallen in love with sleeping; I have always liked sleeping but now the experience has become more heavenly and complete, and this cannot be described in words. The whole delight in going to sleep is all the more, well one can say heart touching. It is one of the real delight of my life at present.

I will give you an anology to actually tell you what a change I am enjoying. It can be compared to like I was till recently only having plain rotis and sabzi for dinner, but now I am having all the kheer and delicious pizzas each day. It wasn't that I complained when I was having plain rotis, I was truly satisfied; but all of a sudden I am starting having the luxury of having kheer each day.

I always am looking forward to going to bed. And the reasson has to be documented in this blog now, so that anytime in future I can recreate the magic anytime long, only if I knew the reasons. It isn't that the bed is the most comfortable one. It is a spring theory reasearcher bed. Not at all good in the long run. And also it cannot the be the amount of work I do at office or the quality of work I do. Because that is very well, quite the same type of routine work I have been doing for three years now.

I can think of some reasons though. It could be the less of pollution around here. It could be kind of time spend I spend only with me each day, where I am doing things only for myself and things which I like and this is a daily routine for me here. And its duration spans for 2-3 hrs, this actually could be the main reason. Because after that only I go to see and each day I am so delighted to sleep. And I also listen to some of my favorite music on my ipod while sleeping that is also I like doing. And I also don't mind sleeping for only 6 hrs at night waking up at around 8 am. I also like to look out of my window while on bed before the sleep, the view is normal to most people, but to me it looks splendid. I don't know why. Maybe it's my whole attitude which is contributing. God please be with me always!! To surprise me and delight me... each day of my great life

Chop Chop, The Prairies

What do you generally do on saturdays? Me.. sleep till 12, then sleep again at 4 and then again at around 1 at night... But this was going to be a different saturaday, the day when we will be cutting the grass, so tender and moist with dew laced on it, grass which we havn't bothered to cut for 6 months now, so that grass which would generally be some cms tall was almost a foot tall. And it was out neighbour Darren who made us realise this, so shouldn't the local council be cutting it. Why should we be doing this, when everyone of our neighbour enjoys the thick patch of green that is right in front of our house 4*4 ft in area, i think. And there is another patch in our parking bay, and the thick forest at our backyard. So were going to cut those as well, nahhh!

My dad has always told me buy some piece of land that we can plough in the English countryside, and live a happy life there after. Daddy!! your long cherished dream is gonna come true, I am going to plough the field in front of my house in Hunslet. And I am going to do it with my bare hands. None of the lawn mowers in Leeds is strong enough to cut the grass that has grown into some kind of a forest and god knows if there are some wild animals as well there. Local kids have started calling it a local zoo, just kidding, but who know maybe they have.

So we started to cut the grass using huhh.. kitchen knives and our hands. Done everything in 6 months, this was the only thing left doing it. Somebody has rightly said you should do everything and try enjoying every pleasure in your life before you die, so here I am cutting grass, and I have developed some good technique, which I wolud like to share with anybody interested in this most trivial, primitive and enjoyable of all pleasures. Lucky me! And the result was devastating, it was as if the Japs had bombarded the poor little hunslet green patch but as long as the local council is not going to sue us for cutting the grass in the most untidy of manners and as long as they are interested only in the grass getting cut that is fine with us.

Indian traditions of Jugad and compromise witheld by us bunch of local desis.

Fracas @ Hunslet TPL

The offical TPL soccer match between teams Tus.TheSmoky and NKDz.Rhinos was a well contested with its usual dose of drama and some good football. The team comprised of the T.Company colleagues and some local below 10yold (had to mention this) boys both black&white. NKDz.Rhinos team won the game 5-2. I scored one classic goal and missed well 2 goals which would have been true classic goal but then who cares when your team so convincingly won, well1!!

But it also showed how much little stamina we have and we don't even try to develop it, becoz all of our guys were well completely exhausted doing only one round of the olympic stadium size large football field. Our guys were doing huhh huhh etc and panting like canines and their myths about their sporting abilities was completely broken beyond any doubts, so did they learn anything from it or resolved to increase their stamina. Next two days we all slept and ate like pigs. Learning lessons are for kids not for us.

But till now I have narrated the boring part of the great TPL league match, the real exiciting part was when the game had ended and the players were all resting at one of the goal post. This was when these foreign TPL players got the feel of the English hooliganism complete with all the spine chilling action to drive a normal man crazy. But these TPL players are tough enough to face any adverseries, they are the best of the T.Company. The incident began when some local Haram.Kids attacked these rather out numbered TPL players. First, the players did not pay any heed to them but then they became quite violent.

These Haram.Kids as they are commonly referred to by the local desis are a determined lot, they commonly are seen in groups and they come out after late evening loaded with their beer cans and F.word abuses to drive any normal person go mad. So these Haram.Kids became very violent because they thought that some other local team had taken over their ever so beloved football ground. So then one of the H.Kids took the football and kicked at one of the player's head who was really kicked hard, and shouted in a rather murmered voice to 'call the cops', which was audible only to the person so close to him only. Now, all the H.Kids were on us, they tried to open the backpacks we carried and showed one of the players knives who in return beat this guy up with shoes well almost. One of our players managed to snatch the ball from the H.Kids and then we decided to leave the ground voluntarily. Now as we marched out of the ground, these H.Kids almost encircled us, talking and swearing at us like wild hoardes. Then as we entered the supermarked on our way back, one of the TPL players was attacked by a beer bottle, this guy who is a great beer fan was really moved by the insult to the beer so he drank the last drops and then smashed the bottle on one of the H.Kids, who bled like anything, faked!! :)

Well!! to an outsider it was ugly, it was cruel and it was racist!! Some people might have been scared and really moved and angry at their inabilty to act as they would have done in their native places, but people like moi! who have really got bored of the secure and courteous lives we live here, it was some adrenalin rushing fun and quite enjoyable as well!! If you know how to find fun and enjoyment in any situation and you sure can if you are self-aware, God save the Queen....

Hot and Sausy! ZEUS Obscure

Yes, it's unpredictable to say the least and it's hot these days most of time. Right, it's mid May and it should be summer this part of the year but for a person living in UK for 5 months now and having to face the extreme cold weather, such a sudden change of weather seems to be a 'mithya'. You do not believe the rains here becoz they can pour anytime, then now you cannot even have fate in the once omnipresent cold either because they are no where to be seen now. And you cannot even believe the sun and it's heating capacity either. It's an ever going battle and the dilemma that goes with it; should I wear a jacket today? should I carry an umbrella along with me?

Then one sees the ceiling and remarkably there are no fans there and thankfully so, well being that would have injured, well all the desi community here. Who is fool enough not to switch it on in such a heat; temp sours up to 21 deg, wow!! So, if this is the normal temperature here so what is the English way to cool in such scrotching heat, hopefully will find out before I burn myself.

We normally have Indian food here, so in our home we cook Indian food, when we go out in Leeds itself we head for any Indian restaurant worth its name, and when we go to somebody place we have again hand made Indian food and when we go out to say some other place in UK, no points for guessing what we head straight for to satisfy our gastronomic needs. Even Indians in India would not be so fond of the ever present desi khana, than desis here are. So when today we decided to go for lunch somewhere to celebrate an activity we are doing here called 'CSS Restructuring' everybody was kind of unanimous that we are going to have something different. What it meant was quite clear we are bored of the desi diet.

And the vote was in favor of Chaophraya’s (THAI RESTAURANT & BAR). Again you may argue, we are not having anything English. But then what is English food, is it fish and chips, of just chips or potato wedges or the hundreads of other things they do with potatoes. Or the ever so famous English breakfast of beacon and sausages, well I kind of love this Englis hbreakfast, sure do. Or is it the Chicken Tikka Masala, the national dish of Great Britain, which when we ordered in the place called Keswick in Cumbria in a haunting desi restaurant, our Bangladeshi waiter and mind you most of the so called Indian restaurant are run by either Bangladeshi or Pakistani desis and not Indian, was quite amused because we were the first desi junta to order it. And just for a quick info bite, the Great Indian Chicken Tikka Masala has been made famous in UK by Bangladeshi chef and no body else and obviously by the ever some more taste hungry English janta who actually ate and found it very amusing.

Well returning back to my lunch at Chaophraya, 'PING YANG YOP' that what it was called and well hopefully will be called in the years to come:
It was grilled chicken marinated with Thai herbs, and servedwith a special peanut sauce and Thai jasmine rice with aromatic green tea.
The rice was well, sweet, ya you read it right, sweet as I was having some Indian Kheer, the only Indian tribe I know will love it are the gujus or may be not, next the meat can be called good. And all the gravy that was there, which was just spoon full for the entire meal was sprinkled on the chicken itself. So came the great Indian dilemma how to eat rice without any gravy to melange rice in and gulp it. But I innovatively managed it somehow to the extent that I actually enjoyed the meal.

And to say some things about the ambience at Chaophraya, it was hmmm THAI! And the waiters were hmmm THAI! And the other guests were hmmm ...

Chillies And Pepper - The Wooden Smile

The English country to define it in words is quite intriguing. From being a sleepers paradise in winters when the sun sets at around 4 in the evening to being late night awakers paradise when the sun doesn’t even sets up at around 10 at night. Me being nocturnal as well as anytime anywhere kind of sleeper it suits me the most.

Till last week, it was as cold as cold can be, so that some of us were contemplating exporting some of the scorching heat from India, which as reports came in was boiling in the Sunny Indian Summer, forcing some to return to their native places for some reasons and enjoy the Indian summer in water coolers which they found quite a delight to bask in.

But then there was this sudden change in climate that one morning suddenly I woke up to find that I had nothing to wear that suits the climate that day and the days to follow. Suddenly the warm Primark jacket that has been my skin for so long was ripped apart from my body. And it took me no time to realise why people would not come around me especially during the last few months. It wasn’t just the smell but an identity I had to shed, who would believe a Superman if he was wearing an underwear inside his pants. Hey! Now you know why he always takes the aerial route and why wouldn’t Lois Lane spend so much more time with him.

Excited with the possibility of an English Summer, I am drying my cloths in our backyard garden and reading the story of Tom Butcher odyssey more so to increase my count of books on goodreads.com than because of any academic reasons.

And just to recap what people else where are doing. Here a quick recap, people here around me are engrossed in valleys of bugs, love and whisky. People in US are buying cars and camcorders. People are going to Amsterdam to see the Tulips bloom and shouting at the world to where they have been on their orkut profiles. Hmm in India, that’s a vibrant country, some people are getting married, some are preparing for their marriage in October, some have decided to take control of their lives and get going in their life and in the mean time they are going on adventure camps and having well some adrenalin rushing adventure, climbing trees like monkeys, going to Burma doing cyclones and doing more dangerous stuff like being eaten by dangerous fishes from the Arabian seas, chased by wild crabs and last but not the least having a sleep-over in a deserted dangerous beach from where civilisation is far away even the Martians are closer than humans from there. And for some reason they don’t have time for me, their hard luck. Anyways, not to forget the cool dudes in North, visiting every village of Rajasthan this time of the year and climbing every communication pole they can. And off course, people in Delhi adding more and more storey to their houses anticipating a family expansion.

And what’s happening in the Akhouri family, they have got a cute new toy to play with and to get themselves engaged in. And our baby is also having a great time growing up with so many people looking after her and her creating life for each one of them. And off course, somebody never thought that life would be so tough on him that after MBA he will have to start working each day of the year, even Saturdays included. Who cares if he is getting free lunch and a cab to pick and drive him home? He is obviously not getting the 2 hrs lunch breaks he enjoyed which have been miserably cut to 20 minutes. And the fact that he is confined to small room not allowed to move out and people call it his office. Hard luck! And some cute couples are doing rounds of Vijayawada and back to Jaipur, and about them I have no clue. And I have to write about somebody, for almost 5 months now her only aim in life it seems has been to get the ISD enabled on her cell so that she could ring on the 16th. Now that she achieved it I don’t know what her new target is. Really love her!!

And what am I doing these days… All smiles….