9.11.2001

..Still remember that night. Me, Tanuj, his wife and few friends of ours were chilling out in Buzz at Saket, Delhi. Amidst the loud music and conversations over booze, we saw the silent images of aeroplanes crashing into World Trade Centre being showed on TV. The entire gathering their watched in amazement as the videos kept replaying. The flow of booze stopped. The music died out as someone switched on the volume of the TV. We forgot our conversations and got glued to the TV. The next 1 hr in Buzz was surreal - no music, no normal chitchat - as we witnessed the world being changed.

I still remember that night.

Been there…done that

Ok some cheap thrills. You will find me blabbering this for coming few weeks.

Friend: hey loks, were you on leave? Didn’t see you in office for past 3-4 days.
Loks: Oh no...actually I was in UK last week.
Friend: Oh…some new project.
Loks: Oh no no… had to meet a prospect…make a proposal presentation on how we can set up their offshore development centre and come back.

Friend: cool.
Loks: yeah.. just part of the job…nothing exciting about it.

Don’t they have a telephone in your part of the world?

Couple of weeks back the European delivery head calls me in his office.

Head: Lokesh, you have to go to UK in two weeks time. You have to make a proposal presentation.

Me: Ok… and then?

Head: ..and then…come back.

Me: Err… so I’ll just be going there to make a presentation..? Why, I can do that even from here. All I need to do is just pick up the phone! Why spend airfare, precious pounds on accommodation, daily expense etc just for sending someone from offshore to make a presentation!!!

Samosa – 60bucks!

The management of Mumbai international airport have come up with a new strategy of letting the flyer get the feel of the ‘conversion’ prices that they normally do when they land abroad – at airport itself. Otherwise how to do you make sense that a stupid samosa for which I won’t have paid more than 5 bucks gets sold at 60 bucks at the airport!!! A 10 bucks black forest goes for 80 bucks. Yes, it’s a good way to make flyers feel the pinch even before they fly!

I hate night flights.

I hate to take the international night flights. They are a real pain in the ass. For starter, you need to leave Pune early so as to avoid the maddening evening traffic in Sion or Andheri and in between, skip dinner as you are caught in transit. As mostly flights depart at 2.am types, more than food, its sleep that’s on your mind. But after a quick snooze and a shot of Jack Daniels you realize – hey this is the late night flight, which means no dinner served! Only snacks and breakfast! Grrrrrrrr.

The other reason I don’t like taking the night flight is because at nights the airport bears a resemblance of a mela than an airport. You bump into all this kachra public traveling in kacchas & baniyaans to Gulf. Ok the Unddies & vest was exaggerated but seriously, the entire environment resembles a bus adda. All the gulf flights leave at night, so you would see all these mallus, tambis – with their loongis tied up to their waist, flaunting their assets, yapping away in a group waiting to leaving India to start a new life in Gulf.

But I am quite impressed with the crowd management at the new international airport. The privatization has really worked. Inspite of such a maddening rush, I was able to check in within 5 mins and clear immigration & security in 10 mins. Not bad…not bad at all!!