The curved line moves again. III - Arrival at Bangkok.

i hate dealing with authorities and i had tried to postpone it for as long as i could. i thought getting visa on arrival at Bangkok would be quick and easy. But others had thought the same. The queue, when I joined it, had already developed three long loops. It took me close to two and a half hours to get my visa in hand. Suvarnabhumi airport certainly can improve its visa services.

Meanwhile as i waited for my visa, my sister waited for me at the lounge and not being able to spot me, she somehow managed to get past the arrival lounge and into the prohibited-for-non-travelers-area with the result that when i finally reached the exit gates there was no sister to be seen. i remember i felt a thought forming in some part of my mind which went something like – what if she has left, i don’t even know how to reach her house - but faced with my conviction that KD would wait till sundown, it didn’t have a chance. :P

While at the visa counter i had eyed the numerous public phones, but not having any thai coins i had not been able to call KD. Now i managed to get change but i could not figure how to use the phone. Is there any particular reason why thai public phones are so complicated to use? Finally a lady taxi driver came up to me and offered her mobile phone and charged me 5 bahts for it’s use. KD was contacted and you can imagine my happiness and relief when i spotted her familiar figure from almost a mile away (Suvarnabhumi is huge!) coming towards me. i had finally arrived and the vacation had started rolling!

We exchanged news and traded insults and got into a taxi and headed home. At home, KD announced that she had a meeting to attend and the venue was very near two big malls – Carfour and Robinsons --, did i want to come along and wait at the malls till her meeting got over or did i want to rest? Of course i wanted to come along! After sis had showered and i had changed, we hailed another taxi from our doorstep which took us to her venue. Sis instructed me on how to reach Carfour and disappeared into the hotel and i found myself walking down the street of Bangkok. :)

to be continued...

The curved line moves again. II - The Flight.

" Please come to the side and let others go. You cant go in. You have already missed your flight". I look at the guard outside the entrance uncomprehendingly - it's still just 9:45. He explains impatiently, "Look at your ticket. Your departure was at 12:05 a.m. and the date of departure was 12th June. That means your flight took off this morning." I understand. I had clarified that aspect with makemytrip. "I know what you mean. But look at the the time of arrival at Bangkok - it is 5:30 a.m. on the 13th of June. Surely it cannot take me more than 24 hours to reach Bangkok by flight!". "Why should I look at the date of arrival in Bangkok. I am only concerned with your date of departure from New Delhi!"

i begin to lose my temper. i pull my cart with a jerk. i want to get it out of the way so that i can get closer to him and make him understand simple logic. i hit his shin with the cart. i lose my case. He squeals and then glares. "Don't hold up the line. If you have anything to say, go to the Indian Airlines office", he dismisses me roughly.

i have no idea where the Indian Airlines office is. i have a vague feeling of depression beginning to envelope me but i push it away. i am in a state of inertia - of motion - therefore i cannot stop. i run to a counter which looks like an India Airlines counter. The attendant tells me it is not but gives me directions. i dash to the building that he points out to me as best as i can with a loaded cart. i run into a corridor and find the office.

i open the door using all the force of my muddled emotions. i cannot enter as i cannot push the cart inside and i do not want to leave it outside the door. So i stand at the door and petition to a shocked officer that the guard would not let me in. He looks at me uncomprehendingly and requests me to come in and calmly tell him what is wrong with me. i am almost at the brink of a second explosion. His calmness and unconcern pushes me a step further. i show him my ticket and tell him that the guard would not let me in. He does not understand. He does not understand my simple logic either. He supports the guard. He does not understand what is best for him. "Theek hi to bol raha hai woh. Apki flight to ja chuki. (He was right. You have missed your flight)". Just then, i get a call from my sister- KD. She does not yet know what I am going through and calls me only to make sure I am performing as per her check list.

The calmness in KD's voice finally pushes me over the brink. I explode for the second time that evening. I do not explode at KD. I explode to KD. Officer does not understand me perfectly as i explode in Bangla. But he finally understands that i am dangerously distraught and he thinks KD is in trouble. "Madam, Madam please sit down. Why are you scolding her (aap unko kyun daant raheen hain)! Wait let me check." And he logs in to his database.

Officer checks the list of passengers for 12th June 2009. I AM NOT IN THE LIST. He checks the list for 13th June 2009 and finds my name. " Here you are. You should run now. " He looks pleased and i think, relieved, to see me smile.

At the door i suddenly remember. "But please make an endorsement on my ticket ." "That's not necessary" he says. I remember the guard and panic again. " But your guard was not letting me in then, why should he trust me now!" " Kis bewakoof ne aapko andar jane nahin diya (Which idiot did not let you enter)!", he says and he makes the endorsement! I bite my tongue. It is best to praise the Lord and get back to motion as fast as i can.

Its now well past 10:00 p.m. i still have to change money, clear immigration, check in, and go through security. But i face no further problems that night.

The curved line seemed to have meandered through all obstacles in her path on the 12th of June 2009. The line was now curving through the skies towards the Kingdom of Thailand where a sister come to receive her, would wait for over two hours and rack her brains and try to think what more could possibly go wrong between take off lounge at New Delhi and arrival at Thailand. Nothing would occur to her until she would get a call from a strange number....

to be continued.....

The curved line moves again.I

i sat on my 'settee' and dreamt. i sat on my settee and planned. i boarded a flight and alighted on the land of my dreams

However, it was not as smooth as i had planned. And how could it be! Remember the curved line?

"Madam, I am at Rajdoot Hotel, please give me directions to your house." That was the driver from Easy Cab calling me at 7:40 p.m.. My flight was at 12:05 a.m, i had called the cab at 8:00 p.m., four hours in advance. I gave the directions. I was not unduly perturbed.

7:50 p.m., and no car had arrived. i called the driver. "If you were at Rajdoot, it should'nt have taken you more than five minutes to reach my home. Where are you now?" "Madam there is so much traffic, I have reached the church now."

8:00 p.m., and still no cab. "The church is just a few yards from my house. Where ARE you." "Madam there was some problem with the car. I am coming."

Finally he arrives at 8:15. My landlord loads my luggage! i see new respect in his eyes. i am going abroad!

We start. We reach Nizammuddin. "Bhaiyya, why is the AC blowing hot air? is there something wrong?" i ask. "Let me see Madam." He stops the car. He goes out and peeps into the engine and comes back to collect two bottles of water. In the next 10 minutes he pours water.

It is 8:30 p.m. when we start again. We reach Pant Nagar. He breaks the news. "Madam I tried to cool the engine but it has not worked. The car will not go much further. You have to make other arrangements."

i explode, i scream. However, soon i realise that he is just a driver working in a faceless enterprise running a fleet of cars which invites its customers to repose total faith in them. i vow never to call for an Easy Cab when i have a flight to catch. i call Easy Cab again and ask for replacement as i do not know whether i can locate a taxi stand. It is not easy to get myself heard. i am caller No. 10 in line even though i have already booked a cab and am about to miss my fligth!

Finally i manage to call for another car and explain the urgency. The car arrives at 9:00 p.m. My new driver is sympathetic. We race as i decide that its either do or die for me now. How can i come back and tell all the people who already know, that i could not even catch my flight!.

I reach Indira Gandhi International Airport at 9:20 p.m.!

to be continued.....

Trying to make sense of random arguments

Fortunately, last night i had a fight (again!) with one of my close friends. It being an argument between two lawyers, soon became a battle of egos - with each not wanting to acknowledge merit in the other's reasoning. It ended in a fight (yet again) without a conclusion.

i dedicate this post to our fight - since it gave me a topic for my post.

The fight was about theorising 'Destiny'. And this post is meant to gain some clarity of what we were fighting about. And also to know what others think.

My friend supports the theory that every individual is 'micro-managed' i.e., what an individual would do in each micro second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year of his life is pre-destined or pre-managed. If a thing were to happen in a person's life, it shall happen. An event will happen, at its predestined time. Before its time, no effort to make a thing happen shall fructify. Destiny will guide a person when to act. If a person has taken a step or a decision at any given time, it is because destiny dictated him to.

i think that if my friend's theory of destiny were true, then we would be mere puppets in the hands of an unidentified manipulator and there would be little or rather, no credit to be ascribed to the individual for his/her successes or failures. i would rather believe that each individual is pre-programmed only to the extent that he/she is born with certain potentials or tendencies which set the person to a particular course. However the credit for the person's achievements or failures goes to his environment and his actions.

Why then do we often make statements like - it was not destined to be , or, he/she was destined to rule. Why despite best efforts do we sometimes not get desired results and at other times, when we are least expecting, we are put on a course we may have desired but not really strived for. I do not know do you?

Boo and family

There are phases when i sit or lie and think of a hundred things i would want to do, i even imagine how exactly i would do what i have dreamt of doing, but somehow my limbs fail to catch the signals and the activity ends in my brain. i have just got over one such phase. Tomorrow i hope to actually enroll in a gym.

Boo was thrilled to see me suddenly at the door on 14th. An unexpected visit from a member of his biradari which seems to be lasting more than the usual 1 and 1/4th days is definitely cause for celebration he thinks. Boo celebrates in the only way he knows how - by jumping - on the bed; on the sofas; from the bed to the other bed; behind the fly where the fly leads, the fly flying and boo jumping over the beds and over the sofas, and of course boo jumping all over me. Yesterday he jumped onto my chest at 5 ' o clock in the morning - an hour i rarely see and i never hope to see when i am home on a long extended weekend. To be fair to boo, he did ensure i was fully awake before he poised himself to jump - he stuck his tongue inside my nose and when my eyelids fluttered only then did he jump.

i first met boo about three years ago when i came home from office expecting to see my parents freshly arrived from Jamshedpur, for good, with their bags and baggage. Boo was peeking at me from behind my father. Boo then consisted of two droopy ears, two large black eyes, one pink nose set in a punch sized head, the rest of him consisted of a ball of white fur with a protrusion at the base which was his tail. It took him only a few seconds to size up this new specimen which seemed to be a part of his family. He had already met AD in the morning at the station when, upon seeing him perched in MoD's arms, she had hoped against hope that MoD were puppy sitting until someone came and claimed Boo.

He met KD about two months after that. When he first saw her he greeted her like his long lost sister. According to MoD, i, being the youngest before him, he treats me like a member of his biradari. However he has the good sense to fear my infamous temper when it is roused and to keep a safe distance when he has roused it. KD however, being KD, and perhaps suffering from guilt, is Boo's favourite stuffed toy.

It would be interesting to analyse Boo's relationship with each of us:

With Baba: He is one of the only two reliable members of his family. He never fails to take Boo for his walk. He always comes back home when he goes out. He brings him the mutton for his lunch. And Boo knows exactly where to find him at any given time - in the TV room. He cannot do without him. :P

With MoD: She is the second of the only two reliable members of his family. She rarely goes out. She is round and cuddly. Her lap is his favourite perch during balcony gazing time. She sings him loris when he is feeling down and out. She cooks him his mutton. She is a comfort to have around. He cannot do without her.

With AD: He could rely on her at least to come back home in due course of the day or a couple of days until January this year when Marina beach stole her away. The other thing she could be relied upon for was to bring him chocolates or poo poos whenever she returned from wherever she had gone. However it is perilous to go near her without first gauging her mood. If she is in a good mood its safe to jump even to the beats of hard rock. But if Boo has jumped at the wrong time God help Boo. Boo has learnt his lessons well on how to tackle AD.

With KD: KD is the least reliable. But his favourite soft toy. She has a loong braid which is fun to play with. When KD is around it is usually unlimited fun. She even takes over from Baba and takes him for walks. Its fun to go out with KD, to jump and run and chase squirrels with KD at the leash.:P

With me: Well as i said, according to MoD, i am a member of his biradari.

Undo Delete and Forward Key

i seem to be the only one left in the family who doesn’t own a blog. Even MoD opened hers recently. Before her, BB did. i am told now that i am a ‘kalank’ to the D family and i should immediately take steps to redeem myself in their favour. So i see that the time has come to act............

As a matter of fact i did own a blog once and had two posts in it. But i deleted it on some whim. i don’t know why, but i seem to love to delete… blogs, letters, scraps and even people when i am unhappy with them. i soon regret however, as i regret now that my first post is now lost forever. It was a rather useful post i think now, i could have picked up from where i left off since i seem to have made some progress – from beholding my empire in awe to taking it for granted.

Well for those of you, who read my first post, the apartment stills stands. i am still the sole ruler of my little kingdom bounded by the walls of my apartment. i still sit on my ‘settee’. But i no longer behold my possessions with wonder. They are some hard won rewards i still think, but inadequate they seem now. Now i sit on my settee and dream about plans for tomorrow – holiday plans, car plans, camera plans, phone plans, what to plan plans………….