Just so that I remember (when I read this particular piece when I am 70), I am sitting in aesthetic and visually appeasing (for various reasons) confines of the Kingfisher Lounge at the ‘M’ Airport at 4:55 in the morning. I have made small conversation with the dame at the counter, got to know of her particularly tough schedule, a few other tit-bits and have been reassured that the flight’s on time..though I wouldn’t really mind if it was slightly delayed…but then so is life…
So back to it, now the thinking or is khurafati the word, person that I am, I had decided to club a personal visit in a city ‘B’ with an official one. Had decided to extend a particularly drab and painful visit to city ‘M’ and move to city ‘B’. Now the night before the planned visit, I had a harrowing time as the personal part of the visit was, to put it tamely, screwed (see there can be more civil words, but civility actually fails to capture the gravity of it…and who’s looking to be an author here anyways). Left office around 9 in a particularly irritated mood and lo behold the weather gods were in a mood of their own. It was pouring like hell - enough to make the drive back home annoyingly longer than what it usually is. So driving back in different shades of anger, surprise & irritation reached home at 11.
Now this Jet Airways Pilots’ charade has ensured that the 8:00 am flight to ‘M’ (my home for around 0.5% of my life…I am on it around two days every week) was competing with the BSE sensex for the investors’ money. So was on a flight an hour early - one less hour of sleep.
Now if you are ever in a mood like I was then - half an hour of Wodehouse does wonders. The flipside though is that it reduces the sleeping time even further…I realized this, the next morning.
Mornings are not particularly good at 4 and with four hours of restless sleep, they are worse. By the way, in case I forget, I was in no mood to proceed to ‘B’ from ‘M’. However, had not really devoted the limited faculties of my overworked mind to find a way to avoid ‘B’. The treadmill’s been a good thinking spot for me over the years. As per my theory, the workout pushes out all options that require an effort of more than 25 calories. So I tend to get the ideas which have the maximum impact with the least effort. And I did hit upon a few ideas to achieve my purpose.
The weather gods hadn’t relented the whole night and Delhi, with generous help from the Municipal Corporation who made sure that every drain was choked somewhere, was as close as it could get to Venice. Just on cue, the weird struck again. I had booked the cab for 5:30. The driver called in at 5:40, telling me it’d take him 30 minutes to reach me. Hmmm.. for a true-blood Delhite, giving him a few of the choicest compliments in Punjabi, Haryanvi and Hindi was the only option and I used it to its full effect. Now these fellows don’t react particularly well to such treatment and his grunts led me to believe that he’d not be coming at all.
So had that sinking feeling of missing my flight again!! Oh, and just in case u think otherwise, the ‘again’ refers to the feeling of ‘impending missing-of-a-flight’, and not the actual missing of a flight. To be fair to myself, I have only missed one flight in life, when I reached some 12 hours after it had left due to a simple (and genuine) mistake of reading a ‘p’ for an ‘a’…as in pm for am. Anyway, with that particular feeling, my mind searched for a good driver at home. Dad was out of town, mum never learnt to drive; the dog - though intelligent - has failed to impress me lately. So the saviour had to be sis.
I entered her room with a swagger, pulled away the blanket with one stroke of my hand and yelled at her to get up. Two great learnings from this – (a) Never shout when u need help; And (b) the pillow thrown with a particular force at a particular angle works better than the most potent missile and can leave the enemy severely incapacitated.
Well, as you may have guessed, the act in (b) was enacted by sis and did leave me speechless (actually voiceless is more apt – remember those times when you want to howl, lips make the right shapes but the sound just doesn’t come out) and holding a part of my anatomy (which can not be revealed here). After around a minute of deep breathing and regaining my voice, I tuned my vocal chords several times to bring out sounds which moved from being harsh threats to severe threats to mild threats to haughty requests to ultimately pleading before she opened her eyes. After around 30 seconds of listening to me and giving it as much attention as a typical hindi-film police daroga gives to a gaon ka boodha kisaan whose cow has been stolen by zamindar ka beta, she blurted that she did not know the way to the airport and if she were to drop me there she would not be able to find her way back.
Now, the way to airport from home requires precisely 7 turns but sis wasn’t willing to take a chance with her memory after being rudely aroused from her slumber. So a map was sought. Now, drawing is to me what dancing is to Sunny Deol – I mean it can be tried but the results have more value at laughter clubs than at the place for which they are intended. Also, my last great work at art had been in standard eighth when the 'picnic scene' I drew was taken to be refugee camp on a beach ravaged by tsunami. So shuddering for a while and seeing no other option, I picked up a pencil and drew a map. The formalities done, I got dropped at the airport and I am told that sister reached home in good shape as she did not refer to the map.
The good part about letting experienced and professional people handle minor details of your travel are that they make use of a small utilities like ‘web check-in’. ‘R’ had done it for me and the ‘attention-to-details’ man that he is he had even placed a print-out in the bundle he gave me. As I walked to check-in counter precisely 20 minutes before the flight, the chick gave me a wide mouthed “Good Morning” and a moment later a very terse “Sorry sir, the flight is closed”. Me being me, gave her a smug smile and gave her my paper boarding pass and a terser “Ok, then stamp this please”. Call it cheap, sadist or whatever you would, I love the look that came on her face. As I realized later that was the only high point in the day. The flight to ‘M’ was without incident, except for the rhinoceros on the seat next to me falling asleep and banging his enormous head on my tender shoulder around 11 times.
Reached office in ‘M’ at 9:30 and called-up ‘A’. It turned out, he hadn’t recovered from his bout of flu and all my hopes of pushing the presentation on him were squashed. Spent the next hour going over the presentation to be made at 11 and left for the client’s office at 10:30. The weird struck again, the gentleman I was supposed to make a presentation forgot about the time he had given me and had proceeded on a ‘field-trip’. Meaning effectively that he would not be in office the whole-day. Perfect beginning and simultaneous end to the planned day. Lined up a couple of meetings and generated some work for the day. I am actually amazed by my efficiency in such situations. Anyways, also decided to finish off the held agenda in ‘B’ and called up the gentleman asking him for the meeting at a time I knew would be decidedly inconvenient for him. I mean which self-respecting government servant would want to schedule a meeting at 6:00 PM. He got back saying “Let’s have this meeting sometime next week.” Hmmm…smooth, trip cancelled.
One skill I wish to learn from the Indian administrative system is that of passing all, and I mean ALL, your work on anyone who addresses you with some respect. Thus, a casual ‘hello’ to a different officer resulted in me writing their office note, drafting a letter, getting it approved from ‘sahab’, taking a print-out on the government’s letterhead and leaving it at ‘sahab’s’ desk for signatures. Proceeded for other meetings and the day ended at 4. Ran through a check-list mentally and ruled out any quick meetings with ‘friends’ in ‘M’, decided to move back home and told the driver to proceed to the airport.
And just as I was taking out the treasured Woodhouse from my bag, the weird struck the third time in the day. I decided to call the gentleman, I was supposed to meet in the morning to ‘re-schedule’ my meeting. As luck would have it he asked me to accompany him to a ‘site-visit’ to ‘N’ the next day and he suggested we discuss my presentation there. Whoops…. I wanted to avoid ‘B’, but swapping it for ‘N’ was not what I had bargained for. I mean I can never understand these ‘site-visits’. Nothing is gained, though there is so much to be lost. One of such visits, I was surrounded by locals who, despite the language barrier, made it very clear that they’d prefer me anywhere but near that dreaded piece of land anytime in future.
Reluctantly agreed to the suggestion and told the driver to take me to the guest-house. The lucky person that I am, I got the earlier of two flights to ‘N’ and was supposed to catch it 6:30 the next morning.
Now, the ‘M’ guesthouse is not one of my favorite places in the world. I just don’t sleep very well there. The early morning rush had ensured that I had not packed my bag properly and lo-behold had forgotten to put in the night clothes. So after deciding to not sleep in trousers the next option best option was to sleep in under-garments. Well, who cares when you are staying single. The only time I had to walk out of the room was to have dinner. The innovative mind of mine decided to make a lungi out of the towel and I was good enough to go anywhere in the world. As I walked out of my room, I realized my dressing sense did not really appeal to the caretaker-cum-cook, rather he was gripped by some mortal fear. I tried to assure him I was pretty straight and my attire was more out of compulsion than attraction towards him, though I am not sure he bought the argument. Anyway, had an early dinner and was in bed by 9.
Now, the remote-control of the air-conditioner of my assigned room decided to play truant this particular night. This added to my dress for the night ensured that I had a night in Siberia rather than ‘M’. Hell, I even had dreams of being chased by snow-leopards who instead of eating me were more interested in my vastra-haran. Besides, nightmares and restless sleep, the extreme weather conditions I was exposed to have an undesired effect on the bladder. Dead-tired and faced with a choice of wetting my bed or ruining my sleep, and having almost chosen the former, I reluctantly got-up around 3:47 to switch-off the A/C and take a leak. I am sure, the observant in you must have noticed the preciseness of the time mentioned here. And the time is precise, because I checked the same in my mobile alongwith a simple, plain and unobtrusive message from the officer I was to accompany next day. Here is what it said:
“Tomorrow’s visit is rescheduled for Saturday, pl take note. Thanks”
The message was delivered at 11:52 PM.
I am not sure, if I am destiny’s chosen child or maybe the satan’s – I leave it to you to decide.
Hmmm, so with the sleep evaporated, I sat up nice and fresh, thinking of what to do of the day ahead. The good part about those god-forsaken hours so early in the morning is that anywhere you call, there are no queues – so had my ticket to ‘N’ cancelled in a jiffy. Checked out the ticket prices to home, the prices for the evening flights were…umm to put it in business lingo…going at a huge premium due to the supply-demand mismatch created by the ‘mass-sick-leave’ of aviation workers of a particular airlines….though part of it could also be because of the weekend rush.
So I decided to take a bath and catch an early morning flight back to Delhi and attend office. As I was proceeding towards the bathroom, another stratagem, came to me. Now, the person of habit that I am, I have read that it takes 21 days for the human body to get used to an activity and assimilate it in the daily schedule (though my body takes something like 42 days…but then people tell me the rule applies to human bodies). My running had been pretty irregular the previous month but I had managed to stitch together a sequence of 19 days till a day before. Now hopping onto day 20, followed by the weekend, where day 21 & 22 would be easily achieved, was too big a temptation. So reasoning with myself that I’d anyways be taking a bath after running, I decided to delay my bathing till I reached home and had run my daily quota.
So I took out the clothes I had worn the previous day and decided to move to the airport immediately. Now, the color white on a shirt does look good, and is a favorite with yours truly (I guess it is with any self-respecting office-goer), but it is tough to make it look good second day running. I calculated the probability of a decent-looking dame sitting next to me and being offended by the dirty (maybe even…stinking) shirt and that being the only reason for us not exchanging phone numbers….it came out “tending towards zero”. Thus, I threw caution to the winds, picked up my bags and made my way out of the guesthouse.
Now, this particular morning, the dogs of ‘M’ were up at an early hour. Also, I guess they have not had many thieves to chase in recent days and were actually up from some game. Whatever, it was pent-up frustration or the urge to show bravado 3 of the ugliest, fattest, noisiest dogs decided to proclaim me as an offender and decided to wake the whole city of ‘M’ by their barking. Now, I am not usually scared by dogs but with three burly fellows flashing their fangs and barking at the top of their ‘voices’ is quite un-nerving. There are moments in life, when running from a situation is actually the wisest decision. It certainly seemed so then and I decided to make a dash for my life. Barely 5 steps into my run, I stepped on stone and…baaam…was lying flat on my stomach. The dogs probably didn’t except this and just stood up five feet from me, still barking. Enough is enough, I left my bags, picked up a few pebbles and with the choicest of compliments to their mothers & sisters threw them at the dogs. They backed off a bit, emboldening me to pick up a larger stone and run after them. I chased them for around 10 meteres and came back victorious. Though it’d always remain a mystery whether the fellows were scared by the stones or my harsh words.
As you would have realized, my white shirt had by now turned to a strange shade of blackish-brown. Hailed a taxi and reached the airport at around 4:30. Proceeded to the government run airline and the lady curtly informed me “only business class available on the 6:00 AM”. Now just in jest, I asked for the price and even toyed with the idea of going ahead. But then all dreams end and a particularly vivid picture of the dropping jaw of my boss, when he’d be approving my bill brought me back to reality. It turned out that the govt. airlines could give me nothing before the 9:00 AM flight. Thus I proceeded to the kingfisher counter and got a seat on the 7:30 flight…and am thus sitting in their lounge…ogling at their staff and writing this piece.
And now there’s this immensely irritated me with a deep thought in mind which makes me raise a simple word in the English language to signify a question of great depth…. “Why??”….as in “why am I at the receiving end of life’s fundoo sense of humor so often”….Now with my mental faculties, the answers would be hard to come by….and I’d anyways pass over this soon…as they say… “this too shall pass”….but from any one of you there…ne answers?? ….not that I’m looking for any…...maybe just a smile....the post is actually to remind me of something...and smile...as Randy Pausch said...a head-fake....:)
PS: The post was written around 5 days ago...could publish it today...
