Ka thianpa zu bottle :p

the Y-Men

when doves fry

The swan, the sun, and the moon

slumdog billionaires

These are some of the kids that i recently met at a railway station. The youngest may be around 7 years old and the eldest around 13 years old. Sans the fair chances that life has to offer they have been forced to grow up too fast. They are engaged in polishing shoes and repairing torn bags and broken zippers. Overzealous in their trade and on the lookout for opportunities they somehow noticed the broken zipper in my bag which i was trying hard to conceal and coerced me into making them repair it. One of them even wanted to polish my black reebok sneakers for which I had to chide him for his repeated requests. Believing that they had found a soft target they even showed me all the holes and tears in their attires trying their best to get me to buy them new ones. Things reached a limit when they charged me 50 bucks for the repair of a measly zipper and i had to chase them away with a 15 rupees payment for their service. Nevertheless i cannot stop myself from laughing whenever the sight of the youngest with colours smeared on his face appears in my mind, 5 days after holi...Truly billionaires in spirit

how to get to the united states and back in 350 dollars

Others would usually have a lot to say about their first visit to the States but the visit i had made in 2007 seems more or less like a vague dream to me now. I just had to pen down some of the memories so that at least some will remain.

Let me start with the 350 USD I had in my pocket when I left Mumbai on Etihad airlines. This amount is an aggregation of what office gave me and what I had also exchanged of my own personal money. This usually happens when one has to keep up with a stingy boss. He would give you enough to experience but not enough to enjoy. Like a colleague of mine use to say, office support is like liquid oxygen. The liquid will try to drown you but the oxygen will keep you alive. Anyway to start with I had 3 beers on the flight to Abu Dhabi where we had a stopover. I spent two hours roaming around the terminal checking out the different shops and wares finally settling down on a Heineken beer for 6 USD. It was quite educative to observe that all the sales girls and other employees at the terminal were people of different nationalities except maybe for the security personnels who may have been locals for obvious reasons. Boarding another Etihad flight after the brief stopover we flew continuously for I believe 16 hrs? until we landed at JFK airport. Till then I stuffed myself with I think 15 beers. I had to literally beg the stewardesses to give me the beers as they were either afraid of me getting drunk or were afraid of me finishing their stock.
Landing at JFK airport, sooner then I exited the airport terminal, a distant Haitian cousin of Papa Doc decided that I was going to be his customer. He stuck on to me and as I had to unfortunately use his expertise to purchase and use a phone card I left my travel plans in his hands. I bought my first phone card for 5 USD and wasted it by not using it properly. I bought a second phone card for the same price and dialled my office to let them know that I had arrived safely. Unfortunately a not so bright colleague of mine picked it up and instead of transferring me to the right desk wasted the balance by asking me about the weather and other stuffs. My collegaue being a Gujju, i do not blame him as i was then in his definition of paradise. Knowing that at least office would know about my safe arrival I decided to proceed on to my destination using the unregistered taxi van of my haitian friend. Settling for 125 USD till Jersey City he loaded my baggage on to the back. However he had a nice laugh when I went to the front left of the van and bumped into him; I had totally forgotten that in the states the driving wheel is on the left side. Anyway he dropped me at the Hyatt hotel jersey city where I met my host. I was around 150 USD down by then.
Checking in at the reception my host was expecting me to pay the advance bill with my credit card to be reimbursed later. Knowing fully well the time it takes for international reimbursements and the condition of my accounts I patiently waited for my host to take out his credit card for payment. After checking in I went up to my room to rest for a few hours. At about 4 PM I came down and gave my presentation for about 45 minutes. After that I was free as my flight was only in the morning two days from then. To help overcome my Jet leg I went up to my room and had a nap again. In the evening I came down and went out to have some food and to buy some beer as everything seemed to be so expensive at the hotel. Roaming around jersey I settled down at a roadside café which was run by a Vietnamese family. I ordered a bowl of noodle soup for USD 12 for which I felt very happy as the bowl was equivalent in size to a small bucket and had enough content to satiate my hunger. As I was eating I saw two chicks coming out from inside the café but my male antenna was snapped when I heard them comment , ‘ did you see that guy eat’, whether the comment was meant for me or for someone else did not matter then with confidence totally dashed. After I had eaten I went round jersey city, bought a few bottles of beer at a shop run by a Gujarati family and came back to my hotel to sleep.
The next day I woke up quite late and decided to see NY city. I was feeling very hungry and could not help notice a hot dog stand from my window just outside my hotel with a few construction workers lingering around the stand and having some of the good stuffs. I did not want to waste money in ordering food from the hotel and also did not want to upset unwritten protocol by eating hot dogs from a vending stall just outside the hyatt. I got dressed, skipped both the hotel food and the hot dogs, and having bought a ticket for 2 USD took the steamer to the NY side. Roaming around the financial district and after having a look at ground zero I bought a hamburger and coffee for USD 5. I took further rounds around the financial district and then came to the jetty where one could get steamers for the statue of liberty. For a memento, using my camera phone I took a distant hazy picture of the statue interposing my face in between. Having roamed some more I returned to my hotel to take some rest.
In the evening I came out again and strolled around jersey. Jersey as they say is filled with Indians and especially with Gujaratis. I had a brief talk with two gujarati couples who I met at the quay and who had come to visit their children working there. I then went to a roadside café where I ordered some beer. After sometime a chick of Indian origin walked in and ordered some beer herself. She was alone and I was alone, and though her body language was open invite for me I held back. Thinking about it now I just cannot fathom my reason for holding back. If I could kick myself I would do so wearing the biggest boots that I could lay my hands on. Anyway drinking beer and brushing aside the presence of the chick I observed the sights and smell of jersey city. I saw a lot of old and young people just having fun, cruising around in their convertibles and SUVs and even a wedding at a church across the road. I also got a big shock when I saw an old little black lady driving the biggest SUV that I have ever seen in my life. After having three beers i paid the bartender USD 15 dollars and strolled around jersey again. Later i purchased a couple of beers at a cornershop for drinking at the hotel. Back in my room,while sipping beer, I surfed the TV and even came across a channel having a show on the making of a pornographic flick. It was a show on a couple brought up on christian values but who later became big stars and even owners of a production house in the porn industry. By then It was past dinnertime and feeling rather hungry I reached for the menu card for room service. Running through the menu I made an order of the cheapest item on it, which was ceaser salad priced at USD 35. I was feeling rather excited and happy when the room service rolled in a big trolley with a covered tray. No tips and the room service guy went out. Flicking the cover open I had one of the biggest disappointments of my life, the image of which is still vivid in my mind. There were 5 lettuce leaves sprinkled with a little cheese and one weeny tiny anchovy fish which the cook may have caught in the Hudson river just a minute back . I gobbled down the disappointing dinner but along with that came a problem of an impending thirst. As i had finished my stock of beer by then i went to the drawer table to get some water bottles that I had seen earlier. As I was going to open one I saw the label on the fancy water bottle which read “VOSS’ and $9. I placed the bottle back again on the tray and sat across the table trying to fight my thirst. For half an hour I contemplated what would be the risk if I just have water from the tap in the bathroom. If I do drink from the tap would it be ok or would I be down with some sickness from a Robin Cook’s novel in a foreign land?. Having made my choice I finally decided to reach for the VOSS water.
The next day which was the date of my departure, the hotel got a taxi for me to JFK (@ 120 USD) . Arriving at the airport I feigned ignorance by not tipping my latin American driver who had even taken down my bags for me, thus saving 5 bucks in the process. At the terminal I purchased a book for my dad for 21 USD and some ‘made in china’ NYPD and Statue of liberty souvenirs for my friends. At 9: 30 Am I boarded the plane and flew in to Mumbai via abu dhabi in about 16 hours. On reaching Mumbai, as it was the weekend, I decided to go back via delhi from Mumbai. As luck would have it, on the way from Delhi airport to my friend's place , I left my two mobile phones behind in the autorickshaw which resulted in the loss of whatever photos I had of my trip and hence none to show in this post.

under a million stars

There are times when I just want to escape for a little bit and be away from my everyday life and see things through the eyes of the common man. I like to live in practical the phrase that I like telling others viz. ‘comfortable in five stars and also under a million stars’, experiencing the sights , smells and colours of the lives less ordinary. Last weekend I was in one of those moods and dragged a colleague of mine along to take a one day visit to a town on the border of the adjoining state. With this colleague of mine deciding at the last minute to join me, we rushed off to the railway station to catch the 7:45 evening train. Having purchased two general tickets at a princely sum of 121 rupees , we decided to have some eats before boarding the train. We were eating some puris when the horn for the train's departure went off and dumping whatever was left over in the dustbin we ran towards the bogey with our bags in our hands. We clambered onboard to an already tight space of sweating humanity. The first one hour was spent smelling the stink emanating from the trian toilets and from the fart holes of my fellow passengers. We were also busily dodging the sweat dripping off from the guys standing next to us while profusely sweating ourselves. To top it there were these pesky Gutka sellers and chai wallas who were entering from one end of the bogey and exiting from the other, like motorboats cutting through muddy water, while hawking their wares and transacting business without the slightest hint of discomfort. As the trian started we got some respite from the heat as cool air started blowing in from the windows. After an hour I could manage to get a little farther into the compartment and away from the toilet doors. However as expected the bogey was crammed full of people and little people represented by brown bawling babies crying their lungs out. One remarkabkle nature of Indian in general that I would like to remark on is our resourcefulness and to make the best use of whatever is available. From putting together agricultural pumps and scrap materials for use as transport vehicles and in this case using the ceiling fans as shoe racks, no one in the entire world can beat us indians for innovativeness. To my side and sitting was a bunch of men peering into some videos that were proudly being played by a young man on one of those chinese mobiles. To my irritation he started playing some 80s jeetendra movie songs in full blast, I could not complain as everyone seemed to be enjoying and having a good time, with the condition of the bogey who would blame them.
By this time people started settling down and sizing themselves into the different spaces. It was remarkable to note that wherein people were jostling for standing space just a few moments back the same people had settled themselves in on their sides or backs for sleep. I decided to settle in myself and take a quick nap standing up. I had actually no choice as my feet were rooted to their spot cemented by the bodies of others who were pressing from all sides. Even if I had decided to fall i swear I would have fallen only from the knees up. My colleague in the meantime had also settled into a small opening in one of the seats as his ass is quite small and manageable.
An hour before reaching station the guy who was playing videos on his mobile phone previously suddenly got up and shouted that he has lost his mobile. He frantically started looking for his lost mobile on the floor and on the seats while thouroughly disturbing the rest of his fellow passengers. After sometime he started bawling with tears streaming down his face which elicited a good response from the fellow passengers. Apart from feeling sorry for the person who had lost the phone it was really funny to observe the sight of farmers in bright turbans, tattoed tribal ladies and even a Sadhu in dreadlocks help look for the lost mobile in the cramped compartment. In the meantime the shoe resting on the overhead head fan decided to contribute in the search by falling from the fan and hitting the sadhu on the head. I was deprived of the outcome of the mobile hunt as we had arived at my station by then and we had to get down. However before I was let go my pockets were searched as a precautionary measure but all they could find was a Nokia N 73 which had the leaked video of MSi (mailed to me by wonderboy from misual.com)