A Perfect Weekend...

29th March 2009, Michigan, USA

I had been in US for two weeks and had not ventured out much from my hotel except for going to the office or an occasional dinner. So, when I made an impromptu plan to go to Chicago and Milwaukee on one weekend, I felt pretty good about it. A trip to Chicago served a dual purpose - it was a transit point for Milwaukee which was my final destination, and I had to visit the Dutch embassy to apply for a Schengen visa. I left home pretty early in the morning to catch the train and it was a very cold morning, perhaps the coldest on this trip. I reached the station way before the scheduled departure time of my train and had to wait outside for an hour in the cold for the station to open... yes the station doors were locked!

It was meant to be a 3 hour train journey, taking me to Chicago at 11:15. The Dutch embassy closes at 12:30 and was about a 10 minute drive from the train station so I had thought I will be there in time to apply for the visa. Unfortunately, the train got delayed on its way to Chicago because of construction work... delayed by almost 40 minutes! I reached Chicago at about noon, rushed out of the station, took the first cab I saw and for the first time in life, sat in a cab with a lady driver (big mistake!). I gave her the address of the embassy and just to be extra safe I told her that it is the Netherlands Embassy and I asked her if she knows the place. She looked at me and said, "I know this address but that's not where the embassy is... the embassy is in a different direction" Then she asks me where do you want to go.. I said I have a visa appointment so I need to go to the embassy... and she insisted it's somewhere else... well, I was a bit perplexed but I decided to stick with the address I had and it turned out that the embassy she had in mind was the Indian embassy and she had assumed that being an Indian, that's where I wanted to go!

Anyways, I reach the embassy building at about 12:15, and as I walk into the lobby, I saw that there is a lady with a sign in register at the front desk. I could have ignored her and taken the elevator to my desired floor but for some reason I thought I would sign in (2nd mistake!). I told her that I want to go to the Dutch embassy and she is like oh sorry, you can't... they are closed! I am like what? I regained my senses quickly and told her that I believe it's open till 12:30 and I will like to give it a shot. So, I go the embassy and miraculously the embassy was open during the hours they claimed to be open... if only I was naive enough to believe the lady at the front desk...

It was a short line for the interview, with 4 people ahead of me and turned out that I was the last person for the day. Two guys in front of me were applying for their visa together. One Colombian guy and another Chinese, both students in a US university and were going on a few weeks Eurotrip. Man, were those guys clueless or what... they absolutely had no documentation, hadn't bothered to check the requirements of the visa and didn't have an idea of their itinerary. They were accompanied by a friend who apparently had traveled quite a bit and knew a lot about visa requirements and procedures. It was funny watching those guys being interviewed and this girl whispering answers to them from behind :-) ... the interviewer would ask what is your date of arrival in Netherlands, and the Chinese guy will say 1st of July and the American guy will say 10th of July and the girl will yell (quietly) in the background... guys it's 1st of JUNE!! Then they will change the dates again and after a while something will hit them and the Chinese guy will ask the interviewer with a guilt, "can we change our dates again?"...

The interviewer was being very helpful to them throughout. The guys didn't have their itinerary citing the reason that if the visa got rejected they would lose the booking fee on the ticket. She even told them that you don't have to book a ticket, just plan an itinerary on expedia or orbitz and print it out... just make sure it coincides with your intended dates of travel... The Colombian guy didn't have proof of sufficient funds and he said that the Chinese guy has it and he will cover the whole expense.. and the interviewer is like, "well, you can get your mother's bank statements as a proof of funds, I can't accept your friend's statement unless he is your... you know... he is just a friend... " :-) . The interviewer had to explain them each and everything about the visa process, and she had to ask them to fax her pretty much all the required documents... I must say that she was extremely patient and nice about the whole thing. If it was a US embassy those guys would have been rejected 10 times over in the duration they were at the window. After their interview, the Chinese guy turns to the girl and says... you know... I am thinking... and the girl goes.. "Joe! Please don't think!! just get the hell out of here before they reject you :-)"

So, my turn comes... I tell her that I think I have all the documents in place... and I did. The only problem she pointed out was that I should have applied for the visa in India and I may or may not get approved... but I knew that I will, so I didn't bother much. It was a short interview but by the time the interview got over it was almost 1:15... I never imagined that people work beyond the stipulated hours in any embassy... I must say I was very impressed by the Dutch courtesy.

I had to catch a train to Milwaukee after that but I still had about 2 hours to the next train and the weather was pretty nice. It was windy and cold but sunny so I decided to walk to the train station and check out the Chicago downtown... I had been there before a couple of times but this part of the downtown was new to me... plus I was walking along the river which I love doing... that's one thing I enjoy about big American cities, almost all of them have a river , harbour or sea... New york, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco... anyways, so I walked along enjoying the weather and taking a few pictures. I felt hungry after a while as I didn't have breakfast so I stopped by a nice cafe, had a grilled sandwich, ate it by the window looking outside... had a coffee to go and started walking again... it probably took me about half an hour or a little more to reach the station but it was a pleasant walk... and on the way I encountered a few familiar sights... I came across the Deloitte office and although I had never been to this office before it still meant something to me as I had sent my application to the Chicago office though I was eventually hired in Washington DC. All this time I was looking for another landmark, i had a vague recollection that it's somewhere in the downtown, didn't know where... and suddenly I found it... right around the corner from Deloitte's building... it was an Au Bon Pain cafe in the lobby of a building... and a few floors above was the office of the company that had made me the first job offer after my graduation... suddenly those days after school flashed in front of my eyes... the job search, interviews, cover letters, phone screens... the interview in Chicago, the coffee I had in Au Bon Pain after the interview while reading "Threads" by Joseph Abboud... and suddenly I felt I missed something... don't know what...

The station was very close by from there... the train was on time and in an hour and half I was in Milwaukee. My friend from Baltimore, Vijay was there to pick me up. I met him after about 4 months and I must say that at the time I left USA to go back to India, if someone had told me that I will get to attend the weddings of 3 of my best friends in US and that I will get to see some of them once every few months, I wouldn't have believed it... at that time it felt like I am leaving most of it behind for good... how shortsighted was I...

Things have changed a lot though... as I said 3 of my best friends including Vijay are now married, so now I get to meet his wife Nandini as well. Last time I visited them she taught me how to make some authentic South Indian food :-) . She wasn't feeling too well this time so I didn't insist on learning something new though just like last time, she did have aloo parathas ready for me! And yes, I was ecstatic to find a tulsi plant in his house... it has been years since I had tea with fresh tulsi leaves... so I made it a point to make tea the next morning with tulsi leaves :-) Most of Friday was spent talking, catching up with the happenings in each others lives... some words of wisdom exchanged, some banter, some leg pulling and some funny stories told and remembered... :-)

Next day was planned to the minute... we got up, I made poha with tulsi tea and then sat in the balcony to soak in some sun (all part of the plan! wasn't like we were wasting time)... then we went out for lunch to meet some friends, i knew only of them, the wife of another very close friend of mine from Baltimore. It was again a nice, sunny day and we were delighted to be outside. The wind made it colder than it was but pleasant nonetheless. We met the other group at the restaurant... it was an Indian buffet... I always thought that I am a perfect customer for these restaurants that run buffet meals... I don't eat meat, hardly eat much in vegetarian food and to their delight don't touch any desserts... Anyways, it didn't take long for everyone to mix up and know each other. After lunch we decided we will go the lake shore and enjoy the sun. We walked along a pier for a while but it was getting increasingly windy as we went deeper into the water so most of us decided were in favor of not going too far. One of us had a cricket bat and a few tennis ball in the car trunk so we brushed up on our cricket skills. It was fun playing after quite some time but the biggest discovery of the day was that Kalpana is a better player than her husband Karthik.

After cricket, the girls tried their hand at children's swings and they sucked at it... then they jogged in the sand with leather shoes on... that was hilarious to watch... and from there it went funny to crazy... we played tic tac toe in the sand, then kadakko... for which no one remembered how to draw the boxes, I thought I will call up my cousin in India to get some instructions but it was pretty late so I let it go. Then we played langdi-choo (or langdi taang or whatever you call it)... it's this game where you divide yourself into two teams and one player from a team goes into the other team's court hopping on one leg and has to touch someone and come back to her court... turned out to be a lot of fun... and I rocked, never went out even once! :-) Then people raced, first on two legs and then graduated to a three legged race... reminded me of high school days! We ended our beach session on a high note by playing the super hit game called Ramu! Thanks Paliwal for introducing us to this game more than 3 years ago... and I have never lost in it since then.. with all due modesty, I rock in this game :-) ... all the Gold Spots can vouch for it! (I apologize to those who are missing the context here... may be I will explain the game in a separate post)

The day wasn't over yet... there was a cool retro style cafe near the lake, so we all went there, grabbed a cup and had a nice long conversation. Something weird happened in between... an American guy... kind of in his 30s, tried to make conversation with me and he was so so weird. I couldn't make head or tail of what he said to me, he had a cross hanging from his neck so I thought he is one of those guys who preach about religion and all but none of his talk had a religious bend... he looked at me in a gay way but then he was too shabbily dressed to be one... he high-fived me for no reason whatsoever... anyways... someone in the group suggested we go watch a movie after the coffee but some of us were pretty tired by then so we decided to call it a day. Vijay, Nandini and I headed back home but we managed to stop by a Barnes and Noble and Boston Store to check out some stuff. By the time we reached home, all we wanted to do was eat something, lie down, listen to music, chat and sleep... well, we deserved it!

Sunday was pack up day. We had to leave early for Chicago to meet some friends and visit a temple, so we got ready, made tea to go and headed out for Chicago. I didn't think I had been to that temple before but it looked awfully familiar, may be I had been to another one exactly like it. Met a couple of Nandini's friends there and it turned out that it's a very small world... her friends and I had a lot of common friends from my IIT days... we had delicious South Indian food in the temple and I even packed enough for me to bring home with me (it lasted me almost 3 days!)... Nandini's friends were fortunately headed in the same direction as my apartment so they graciously agreed to offer me a ride.. it was about a 3 hour journey and we made full use of this time cursing the hell out of the AIG guys, and the investment banks and anyone else who we didn't like.

It's almost always a hollow feeling after you come back to an empty home after being with those whom you like but I have done this enough number of times now to take it in my stride. I came home, turned on the TV, checked my email and got on with the real life...

Look for the Base Note

22nd March 2009, Michigan, USA

I was in the Boston Store at Brookfield Mall with a friend, whom I was visiting in Milwaukee, looking for some luggage items. I entered the store and by default had to pass by the perfumes section as those are usually at the entrance of most of these stores for obvious reasons :-). I suddenly recalled that a friend of mine is a big fan of a Gucci perfume so I thought I will check it out for her in case it's available. The store unfortunately didn't have the brand I was looking for but the sales woman showed me the new brand that was in. She mentioned that the one I was asked for has been discontinued.

We came back home but I wasn't fully satisfied with her response, so I went online to Gucci's website to realize that perfume is still available, so I told my friend that the sales woman lied to us about it being discontinued. Then we started talking about how this perfume is different from the ones she showed us. I told him that perfumes are generally composed of three different fragrances called notes which makes up for a harmonious scent. The top note or the head note is the scent you get immediately after you apply the perfume and for the next few minutes to an hour, then it makes way for what is called the middle note or the heart note which is the main body of the perfume that kicks in once the top note starts to fade, this scent can last for many hours. Eventually as the heart note grows lighter, you start to smell the base not of the perfume. The base note is the underlying tone of the perfume and brings depth to a perfume. Over time, the top note and the heart note soften and the base note is the scent left at the end of the day.

Now my friend has been happily married for a little over an year now and we used to have discussion in the past about what he is looking for in a girl, what works for him and what doesn't. Since his marriage the roles have kind of reversed and he has been giving me advice about what should I look for in a girl, what matters and what doesn't etc. So, he was listening to my explanation of perfumes very attentively all this while and after I was done talking, he looks at me and says, "Himanshu, you should look for the base note in a girl!". I didn't ask him for any explanation, the metaphor was obvious. And out of all the discussions we ever had about relationships, this is one I am not going to disagree with even a bit... when it comes to perfumes and girls... look for the base note... when all else fades away that is what matters...

Mumbai (Airport) Meri Jaan

I have for quite some time maintained that Mumbai airport is among the worst in the world, if not the worst. Having visited close to a 100 airports, I don't think it's quite an uninformed opinion either. There are a number of reasons why Mumbai airport beats everyone else hands down in this race - the long waiting lines, the disorganized management of the airport, unfriendly airport staff, scarcity of sign boards to guide people around (specially international travelers), the vultures near the baggage claim area offering to help you clear the customs and so on. Sometimes they make you walk almost half a mile from where they stop your cab to where the airport gate is, at other times you wander aimlessly to find a taxi outside the airport.

Well, all this was in the past and I have been trying hard to get over it. People keep telling me that things have improved a lot and I could notice several positive changes at the domestic terminal myself. But just like the nightmare where I fall of a cliff into a river, bad experiences with Mumbai airport keep coming back to me. Here is the latest one.

It's valentine's day and I am headed to Delhi from where I am supposed to catch a train to Kanpur. My cousin is getting married next week and being quite close to her I made it a point to attend the ceremony. So, I am flying Air India and the flight is at 8 am. I didn't reach home from my office until 1:30 am since I was handing over my work to a colleague. Forced by habit, I had deferred packing for the last moment and started packing only about 2:30 (what did I do between 1:30 and 2:30? check emails of course... didn't I check them while I was in office? of course I did... were there any new emails in this one hour... not really). Since I was going for a wedding I had to pack most of the good clothes I had since I wasn't sure what I would wear. Packing, emails, TV and shower killed the next two hours and I was done by 4:30. Now I had two choices, either go to sleep for a couple of hours and then get up in time for the flight or pull an allnighter. Given my reputation as an extremely bad early riser, I decided I will just stay up.

Later I realized a friend of mine is leaving for Delhi in the morning, though her flight was an hour before mine. So, I thought since I am up and ready anyways, I might as well go to the airport early and hang out with her. Now since she was flying Jetlite and I was on Air India and these two airlines have different terminals, I planned to first check my bag in and then drop by her terminal to say hi. So, I reach the airport and get in the line at the Air India terminal. After 10 minutes of waiting when I reached the door, the security told me that this Air India flight that I am on leaves from the international terminal! And without sparing any extra words or time he asks me to get out of the line. Now suddenly my focus has shifted from meeting my friend to making my flight! How did he know so easily that my flight was leaving from the international terminal? Apparently all flights starting with AI and not IC leave from the intl terminal. Too bad I didn't know because it's obviously not the airline's responsibility at all to tell its passengers that the domestic flight that they are planning to take is not really a domestic flight but an international flight with a Bombay to Delhi domestic leg. I should have totally imagined that... I can understand airlines not being able to predict the departure gates in advance but something that they have known ever since that flight existed and still can't print on my e-ticket or pop up a message at the time of booking or send an SMS is beyond reasoning for me.

Anyways, that's the airline bit. Coming back to the airport - I am not sure why this model emerged but India seems to be the only country where you have different national and international airports in the same city and no attempt is made by the airlines or the airport authorities to distinguish them clearly. Even if you had to keep two airports, some distance apart from each other, for God sake at least provide a decent shuttle service between the two airports and put a sign somewhere as to where the shuttle runs from. I have heard Delhi airport has a shuttle of this sort though never had to use it. The last time I was about to reach the wrong airport in Delhi, my brother told me so on the way and I rectified 'MY' mistake. The reason my brother knows is because he has made that mistake in Delhi and would have missed his flight had he not paid a ridiculous amount of money to a taxi to drive him to the right terminal, they didn't have the shuttle then. But Mumbai for sure has no such service. To make matters more pleasant for the wretched passenger the airport doesn't allow auto-rickshaws and taxis to pick up passengers from the arrival terminal. Now this part beats the hell out of me - you don't run a shuttle, and you don't let anyone else run anything either... great. If you come to drop someone at the airport in a taxi then go figure how would you go back since that cab is not allowed to take you back! What's the way around? C'mon... all Indians know the answer to this question by now... pay more than you have to and pay someone something they don't deserve and you can get the job done. Autos are not allowed to run this route for a normal fee but they can of course do it for about 10 times the fare because then they can bribe whoever would have stopped them from doing it. So yes, I paid a rickshaw exactly that and for some reason I was initially failing to understand the driver took an assistant with him while leaving the airport. When we were near the international terminal, he got down and then his assistant took over the steering and told me that the driver was drunk and was afraid of being caught at the international terminal.

So, I reach the international terminal, ask an airport staff where is the check-in line for my flight to Delhi, got into that line and (I should have been expecting this by now) after waiting for 20 minutes for my turn was told that I am in the wrong line (the lack of a flight no. on top of that counter should have been sign enough for any doubting passengers) and the Delhi flight check in is somewhere hidden behind an adjoining wall (how could I not see it!). So, I go there, check in. They give me a white form where I had to declare that I am not carrying any dutiable goods with me and was told to deposit this form to the customs. Now I am sure there is a separate process somewhere for domestic passengers but the fact that I am totally incapable of reading English or understanding signs, I had to go through the same lines and steps that international passengers do, half of the times being told that I don't need to be here I could have just walked through an oblivious unmarked passage somewhere... Anyways, at every stage I checked if I should give them that white form and the answer was at the next check... well, I am on a train from Delhi to Kanpur right now and the form is still with me. I am going to try the ticket check at Kanpur station... they might want it.

Anyways, after all checks I finally reach the domestic gate for Air India and man, I can't tell you how bad that place was stinking. It was like a damp basement without a window that hasn't seen fresh air for months and you have filled it with sweaty people... that sort of smell... I still had some time in my flight so I went to an international gate. I called up my friend flying to Delhi and wished her Valentine's day (that plan worked out well...) and then decided to write this blog. Since I was up all night, I wanted to grab a coffee while I write. Fortunately there was a cafe right there and I order a Cappuccino with Peach flavor. The guy seemed to take longer than it should and after making the coffee he took the cup to his co-worker and sheepishly asked him, "does this happen to coffee when you add peach to it?" the other guy is like, "No, you can't add flavors to coffee, they are meant only for tea". I felt like I had walked into a "chai ki tapdi" asking for a hazelnut latte with a double shot of espresso. What had happened to the coffee was that the milk had curdled and they tried to blame it on the peach and instead asked me to have a plane cappuccino instead. By that time I had lost the trust in them and walked away and started writing without the coffee.

The flight itself was good and uneventful. They gave us breakfast which was much needed since I was very hungry. It's a good feeling these days to being offered anything on a plane without being asked to pay for it. All said and done, Air India continues to be favourite airline when it comes to food :-)

This is a Good Day!

4th December 2008, Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam

It's one of those days when you are not very sure if it's a good day or a bad one. So I had to make a connection at Amsterdam for my flight to Mumbai, there is a long line at the security check but then the elite line was totally empty - it almost gave an impression that it was closed. Turned out it was open and I was able to save an hour of waiting time... and then when they were checking me in, for the first time on an international flight I was upgraded to Business Class! It's funny... only yesterday I was thinking how I used to get upgraded to First Class on domestic US flights but never on any international flight... I wondered if they do free upgrades on international routes at all... well, I have my answer now :-)

And then when the baggage had to go through the X-ray machine I asked for my camera film to be hand inspected... they said it has to be above 800 ASA for hand inspection, mine was 800! Remember how in school you used to get 79.8 points on an exam only to realize that the A grade starts from 80? That's the kind of feeling I got... I requested for a hand check anyways and they tried to convince me that it's going to be fine in the machine. Upon my persistence they agreed to hand check it but then their supervisor intervened saying it's just too many to check manually, which was weird since I got it hand checked at the Detroit airport without any issues... well, in the end I wasn't given the choice and had to put it through the machine. After the bag came out of the machine, the security guy tried to be funny and said, "See, nothing happened to it!" ... I would have smiled in most situations but considering that the film was for my newly bought Polaroid camera that I was too excited to put to use upon reaching India, cost more than $100 and probably not available in India (except may be at a few specialty stores)... I didn't find it amusing. I couldn't help but recall how I brought a lot of film back from US to India for my brother's wedding and had checked it in. I used the film to take pictures at the wedding and we were all shocked to see the prints turn out washed out, spotted and with all kind of other weird effects... never before had I screwed up such important photographs...

Oh well, I will at least get the eye shades now on the plane that I tried so hard to find at the Wal-Marts in Michigan! (to be fair to Wal-Mart I did find a pair at a Wal-Mart in Wisconsin but then those were just too fluorescent green for my taste) And for those who are going to argue that I could have got them in Economy as well... I asked and was refused... being told that those are only for business class passengers... ok, business class it is... anything for a good sleep :-)