SAFE ABROAD - NOT SO IN OUR OWN

A senior executive, holding the country head position and is a frequent flier. He was to take a flight to Zurich – Switzerland. It was a difficult task to get in the Mumbai Airport amidst the crowd. No ramps – You need to lift the Suitcases/Travel bags often – Even if the bags had the wheels. And needed to stand in the queue for a long time to show the things – Ticket, VISA, Passport, Currency (US$), etc. Since, he used to have the luxury of Driver/Office assistant to carry everything for him during routine days; it was difficult to handle on his own at the airport. Then, he needed to go for the security check. One has to be away from the hand baggage for about 5 minutes. Those were the moments of anxiety. Because the hand baggage has all the important documents, currency, tickets, hotel confirmations, etc. Finally, everything was over and he had boarded the flight without losing anything except his temper. It was indeed a very nice flight with good looking girls in skirts – Speaking in a Scandinavian Accent English – Helped him to keep his luggage on the overhead cabinet. He had good drink in the flight and had a great sleep.

Come Switzerland. Fantastic Airport. The luggage arrived in time. One need not lift it. Just one needed to stroll it all over the airport: From the luggage belt to the arrival hall to main hall. Everywhere the flooring was such that one could see and comb their hair. Of course, he oddly / hardly had some. He was mentally comparing Mumbai and thinking that this is the place anybody wanted to be in. He was enjoying the airport. He could straight away walk with luggage to the train station with the Trolley. To get the ticket, he needed to exchange his TC (Travelers Cheque) in to Swiss Franc. He got some 100US$ exchanged – enough for the train journey from Zurich to Uzwil (Elsewhere in Alps) and on the way refreshments.

He turned back to push his trolley to the station and found his hand baggage vanished in thin air.

The 12 Feet sign board in the arrival hall of Switzerland Airport read

“BEWARE OF THIEVES and TAKE CARE OF YOUR LUGGAGES “

NAPPING – ON THE MOVE

My college (PSG College of Technology) is 15 Kilometers from my residence. The timing was to start at 08:30AM. I used to take bus near my residence at 07:00AM. It usually reaches to my college between 08:10AM and 08:15AM. My classmates/college mates used to envy about my napping (Actually sound sleep) during this travel. Within 5 minutes of boarding the bus I fall into deep sleep not worrying about the noise around, people around, the bumps and potholes on the road, the distorted suspension of the bus. Nothing mattered to me.

After my studies, I started attending my office. Here the situation is still better. The distance is 25 Kilometers. Only difference is my colleagues used to envy or bully me.

The surprise for them is that I had never missed to get up at my desired destination. There so much betting that I shall miss one day. But nobody could see that happening.

The peculiarity in this whole episode is that my sitting posture during the nap. Both my legs folded and rested on the front seat. Then the nap continues till the destination. Even today, whenever I get a chance I do that. My wife curses me for that.

But NAPPING ON THE MOVE shall continue as long as I can.

SIZE DOES MATTER

Our schools, Our Epics, Our Moral Stories, Our Elders, Our Culture, Our Constitution says discrimination in any form is a sin, an offence and denial of human rights. In contrary, see or hear what is happening in China. 200 people died in ethnic violence in a Chinese province (Real number shall never be known to the world). The reaction from the ruling government is that isolate the province, snap all kinds of communication and black out the area. It makes their task easy to cleanse the small in number community (I hate the word – MINORITY). That is why I said the numbers does matter. The so called minority saviors – Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, D.Raja, Sitaram Yechury, USA, Pakistan – did what. Nothinig! No words from these comrades. Because the killer is a big comrade. Is there a gut in the biggest democratic countries of the world – USA or India to condemn this? Or at least release a press statement in support/concern of those getting killed barbarically?

No! Hell with this kind of democracy. Instead they supply arms and ammunitions to both the sides.

The size does matter.

WORLDS FAREWELL TO ITS GREATEST EVER ENTERTAINER

I do not know, how many of us – fellow human beings, cried, weeping in sorrow, Irrespective of color, race, language, nationality – throughout the ceremony. For me this never looked like a ceremony. It looked like facilitation by the world to greatest ever entertainer, unifier, human being.
The casket carrying the beautiful soul was strolled inside the STAPLES. The tears never stopped from that moment onwards.
How is he related to me? I don’t know. But his influence will be there with me always. My 4 years old son was in fact consoling me by seeing the tears rolling out of my eyes.
The songs sung by different singers, the musicians and the speeches flooded from different human beings are perfect.
In the end, his daughters words spoke lot more than what she delivered.
And as a fitting finale, when his physical remains moved out of the theatre – the background music playing – no voice of the Great Michael Joseph Jackson – instead a ray of light at the centre in front of the mike – at the backdrop his portrait.
We are missing a great music legend. May other musicians take his legacy and spread the world with music and HEAL THE WORLD from this sorrow.
LONG LIVE MICHAEL JOSEPH JACKSON – YOU’LL BE THERE, HERE and EVERYWHERE

MY DOMAIN - DIECASTING

People call it PDC. It is Pressure Die Casting. Normally if somebody says Pressure Die Casting, He really refers High Pressure Die Casting. I am not gonig to make you guys whoever reads this blog with this lecture. Whatever you are up to in daily life, at least once the product made out of this process helps you in any one of the way. It may be in the form of Aluminium, Zinc and Magnesium Components - Automoblies, Refrigerators, Washing Machines, Utensils, Laptops, Mobile Phones, Textile Machines, Aeroplanes, Ships, Motors, Pumps, Valves, Trains, and so on. In this domain, I had something to share with you.

If it is interesting to you, go through it.

Otherwise, just ignore it.

BUN – FUN FLIGHT

It was a long trip for a Semi-vegetarian Indian in China. I had to be there for a business purpose north of China – Changchun. The trip was from Delhi Beijing è Changchun è Zhengzhou and for 15 days. I had a very rich and high flying executive sitting next to me. I had an embarrassing situation involving him once. No it was indeed twice.

Instance 1.
He was using his mobile gadget on the flight. As I was not aware, that there are mobile phones which has the flight mode option. I asked him to switch off the instrument as a very rule abiding, safety conscious passenger midair. The executive looked at me, frowned and said that is taken care. This was the FUN part 1 in that trip.

Instance 2.
Throughout my stay in China, I could not manage with the kind of food available and could not find an Indian restaurant. However, on the way back to India, on the flight I got the Indian type of food. I was very happy just at the sight of the menu. The menu also had an intercontinental aroma. Hence, there was this “BUN”. The bun was neatly and tightly wrapped. We were all having our Dinner, including the mobile savvy executive. After couple of drinks in to my throat, I tried to eat the bun. To eat, I needed to take it out of the wrapper. I tried hard and finally I made a wild attempt by keeping the wrappers cut to a small opening and pulling hard the sides. No one could have imagined the effect. The BUN flew from the wrapper and fell 5 rows behind. My row and the BUN row (where the bun landed), got laughter and shocker respectively. Imagine sitting in a flight and enjoying the dinner after couple of drinks; if some flying object falls from nowhere. It was fun for us. I am sure it was an anxious moment for the 5th Row.

Myself and the executive had MOBILE-BUN-FUN trip.

MY FIRST FLIGHT

When I was young, I never dreamt of taking a flight for traveling. And to the next to impossible, I never even imagined an abroad travel. This may seem to be exaggerated. But for a boy hailing from a small town elsewhere in southern part of India that too in the year 1993 was really an extravagant happening. The day had been in my memory like as it happened yesterday. My trysts with the formalities – PASSPORT (To be frank I did not possess the piece of booklet when the announcement made by my organization), VISA, Foreign Exchange, Dresses, and so on – notwithstanding, with all amusement I announced to my Family that I am traveling abroad for months together. They were, at first in a dilemma – as a normal orthodox family, but finally could tell me go ahead. I have never seen the Airport to be so crowded only with my family and friends (We were 5 colleagues traveling 1st time out of country) till date. From the time the Flight took off, I could not hide my excitement such a way that till the Plane landed at Mumbai (Then Bombay), I was all at smiles – very broad, loud and happy. It was a different experience. To my knowledge, the Aeroplane also had to pass through Speed breakers / Bumps mid air. And there were UPS and DOWNS (Very steep though), TURNS. Then, we had some purchasing to do for our trip to GERMANY for evading the climate. Mind that, in Germany the winter was setting in. We landed in FRANKFURT next day and Taken one more Flight to Berlin “TIEGEL” airport.

Oh my goodness. The dream of flying high had been conquered with 3 consecutive flights at a stretch. Coimbatore - Mumbai - Frankfurt - Berlin
Thank my parents, teachers and employers for making impossible to possible – me traveling abroad.