I know I write really long blogs. Fortunately, for me, I don't have to compete in a 'short note writing' competition. I'd have failed, miserably, time and again. Social issues, my perception of people's perceptions, movie references, traveling, hurricanes, people who influenced me, have formed the various topics of my blogging. With the hurricane season fast approaching, lets see how many blogs I'd have to dedicate for them alone, or, lets see if I'd be able to write on hurricanes, at all :P
June!
The mid month of the year, the birth month of one of my oldest friends, and the month in which probably one of the greatest things in life has ever happened to me - the anniversary of the band, which quickly stepped into its 4th year of formation. But the June of 2009 was special in other ways. The reason for which I and quite a few people close to me were waiting since the early February - my going to India after almost an year of being in the US.
Now to talk about how I found Bangalore after an year would be an extremely long blog. So, very wisely, considering the plight my blog readers will have to endure each time they click on the link and gasping to see how small the scroll bar would be, I decided I'll write about the journey in the first part, and follow it up with a sequel of how I felt things were back home. Gosh! I'm getting wiser with each passing day!
June 10th.
The day I'd been waiting for, with bated breath, since the past 4 months. Quite an adventure happened, I must say. My flight was in the late afternoon (Indian Standards) or early evening (US Standards). Ok, it was at 1530 hours. I'd to get to Houston, the nearest big city to board my flight to Chicago. Houston is about an hour's drive from my place. My room mate, very willingly (probably to whisk me off for a month's time, not withstanding my vocal torture) agreed to drop me off. About 45 minutes into the drive (Oh! Driving in the US is such a big bore), the windows failed to open down, the sun roof failed to engage, disappointing my room mate and another friend, (who had a flight to Newark an hour earlier than mine) who wanted to have a smoke. We decided to stop the car while the both of them could have a smoke and then resume the remainder of the journey of around 30 minutes. The car stopped, no doubt, the cigarettes were lit and the short break of 5 minutes turned to be a tensed break which would last for around 30 minutes later on. The car did start, but the gear refused to budge. It just wouldn't move from P for Parking to D4 for Drive 4. Not quite shocking, since, apparently, it'd happened earlier. The shock started growing intense when the situation remained the same after 10 minutes. My room mate, being a mechanical engineer, started using brute mechanical force for the poor automatic transmission. It just wouldn't budge. The clock was ticking away.
We called up our other room mate, who was busy, (which is why he wasn't keen on whisking me off) for help. Numerous combinations and pressures of applying the brakes while struggling with the gear shaft provided little result. The other room mate at home was left with no other choice but to get another car and pick us up from there and drop us off at Houston. There are no autos here and people just go past, without bothering what is happening. So much for thinking that Americans are very helpful. I'd not say otherwise, I'd say, it was just not our day.
The back up car, dashed its way through the freeway, and was exactly at the location we were stranded in, in remarkable time. We transfered the baggages and hopped on to it. As for the poor car that had broken down, it seemed to respond to touch, for it responded as soon as my other room mate put his hand on it. Anyways, we reached the airport, just in time. I checked in my luggage all the way till Bangalore, with not having to worry about it wherever I stopped. Oh yes, I'd to stop at quite a few places. ;)
Chicago was the first. A 2 and a half hour flight journey from Houston. I gained some knowledge from my suavely dressed and groomed co-passenger, Angie, that flights from Chicago are bound to get delayed, courtesy - rain. The flight landed, and I had to run around quite a bit. The airport is huge! I had a transit of an hour and a half which was worrying me, but didn't affect much. The flight out of Chicago's O'hare International Airport was right on time and I was on it, heading toward central Europe, one of the oldest airports that has seen the World War 2, Frankfurt International Airport, Germany.
The 8-something hour journey was not very strenuous. Come on, I was going home. Nothing could be taxing! I'd a German young girl for company. The carrier, American Airlines was nothing impressive. It was a tad more luxurious than a local flight in the US. No screens on indivudual seats, impatient and rude stewardesses all characterised this journey. I'd not say racist, not yet. The food was ok. I'd asked for vegetarian food, and I got it.
Frankfurt was one of the very big airports I've ever been to. I knew it is old. But I didn't expect it to be that huge. I had to kill 4 hours of time in this airport. Cursing myself for not having space in my carry on baggage, I was able to buy some vodka chocolates, leaving the other tempting ones behind.
I was looking forward to the next stretch of journey toward home. Mostly because I was switching carriers at Frankfurt and travelling by an airline that has earned the reputation of being very good. Fly Emirates.
The moment I finished my security check and boarded the Emirates flight, I could only keep my mouth wide open at the luxuriously appealing flight interiors. It was too much, more like pampering its guests. It took half an hour for me to close my mouth. The economy class in Emirates seemed like first class in other airliners. I was expecting some good company this time, but alas, when you expect things, the opposite happen. Humans don't seem to realise this simple law of nature. Anyways, I was alone, with probably 5 of us occupying the row in which I was seating, a row that had 3-5-3 seats! This aircraft was wide! WIDE!
I reached Dubai, (have forgotten the flight duration) and for the first time, I got down the flight from stairs. There was no aerobridge and my guess was, there was no FREE aerobridge. :P I felt like a VIP in those days when they would wave at fans and get down the stairs. Only, I was just a P, and there were no fans. Of course, I didn't wave! You take me for a fool? :P
Having travelled and probably more because of being in the US for a while, it was quite common to give way to the people walking by, stop for them to cross you, say 'excuse me' and smile at times. The moment I was in Dubai, I failed to realise that I was getting close to Indian border. I was expecting a huge airport, modern facilites and awesome ambience. What did I tell earlier? Humans fail to learn from their mistakes. The facilities of the airport, whatever modern it was, was plainly masked by the unruly and impatient crowd. Hell, I even saw quite a few firangis jostling their way through the crowd and going full steam ahead like all hell had broken loose. It took me 5 minutes to come to terms with this. Stench and filth masked whatever ambience the airport was built to provide.
The world tour and hopping at each major airport had left me exhausted by then. Dubai is a favourite and famous shopping destination. It's been that for quite sometime now. My legs failed to respond to my brain and there I sat idle, for 2 hours, waiting for the flight to Bangalore.
This international journey was probably the smallest in this course, but seemed the longest. Bangalore was a 4 hour journey from Dubai, and the time was well kept up by the captain. Brilliant crew, courteous stewards/stewardesses, awesome ambience. Emirates was a nice experience. I reached Bangalore on the morning of 12th June.
Almost 28 days later, with no sense of excitement to leave home, whatsover (obviously), I'd to leave, to complete an year more of coursework. My flight was at 1730 hours on the 7th of July. It was by chance that I wore a bright red shirt that day, to fly in Kingfisher Airlines, (whose crew wear red) to Delhi, one of the best, no, probably the best domestic airline ever. I wouldn't say that confidently, because, this flight remains the only domestic flight I've ever flown in India. Needless to say, I was super impressed. Let alone the reasons for which Kingfisher is popular, they had TV screens behind the headrest of each seat, the first class passengers had a blanket for themselves, and pav bhaji was served for all! I agree, the choice of channels on the TV wasn't all that great. But it'd quite a few channels - one each for news, movie, music and some 'comedy time'. It served the purpose. I was pleasantly shocked. The choice of cutlery, videos for safety vests, all these on a domestic flight!! Hell, it wasn't even there on the 3 domestic flights I've flown in the US! I felt happy that Vijay Mallya was taking Indian Aviation to the next level :)
If the arrival to Bangalore was a world tour, the departure was a baggage adventure tour! I'd to re-check-in my baggages in Delhi, switch terminals from domestic to international, go through security check and all that shit. All that is good. Only, the collection of my baggages, going to a transfer counter, taking my luggage manually onto a bus which would further take 15 minutes to transport us to the international terminal, find the counter for 'American Airlines' amidst one million carriers there, answer some 'silly but important' questions for a lady who was with 'AA' and spoke in such a high speed that I wondered how many takes she took to memorise the questions, go through immigration, seemed a hassle. With only an hour left of my 4 hour transit time, I went around the airport, grabbed a fruit juice and waited to board the flight mentally preparing myself to undergo the torture of sitting in the same airline that has no TV screens, rude crew for 15 and a half hours. The flight from Delhi, went straight to Chicago.
The crew was better than the ones in the flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, and they had TV screens too! I felt sorry for being judgemental of AA in only one flight route and changed my opinion about them. The long journey was not as bad as I thought it'd be. I'd Matthew Reilly for company, with his '6 Sacred Stones'. I was lost in it, totally, when I was not sleeping. Much to my amazement, the flight reached Chicago an hour ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, the immigration offices would not open till 5 AM, so, we were asked to wait for a full 45 minutes in the flight. With quite a few pages still left of the novel, 45 minutes of adventure filled fantasy was only a bonus that I'd not asked for.
Got down at 5, done with my immigration, picked up my luggage, went through customs which the officers didn't bother checking, (akin to what happened in Bangalore), I was wondering how the fussy-finicky US government let the Swine flu test pass. They checked each and every passenger in Bangalore for Flu! Anyways, I transferred my luggage to AA domestic, and boarded a 10 minute train to the domestic terminal. This didn't seem even half as big the hassle I underwent in Delhi. I'd four more hours to kill in Chicago and was hoping that rain wouldn't play spoilsport. My flight to Houston was at 10 in the morning. So there I sat, with my novel, the climax fast approaching now, I didn't wanna be disturbed. My brother called up from Canberra and reminded me to remind myself that I board the flight and not get carried away in the book. With Reilly, such a thing happening is not very surprising.
This flight took 2 hours, a half hour less than it was supposed to. No problems, no qualms, no complaints. I was barely paying heed to all that :P
Finally, I reached Houston, and my room mate was there, in the same car to pick me up. Had it broken down again, I wouldn't have bothered much, neither would I be as tense as I was, the previous time. Grabbed something to eat en route to Beaumont, to the (love to say), Bed Bug free house in Beaumont.
