Gibberish verse

This has to be some random nonsensical words strung together without any logic because am in no position to actually write anything sensible. Yet, I am trying since I am in the mood for it. So lets see how it comes out :-s

You may never have cared
discounting the few pretentions in the past
but what matters is that I care no more
and hope this condition will forever last.

The intimacy may have withered away
a formality may have pervaded in between
Yet, endearing as you are and you shall be
you shall never be abandoned by me.

----

I felt like ending that. And start writing something else. Lets see how this new attempt comes out :-s.

An yellow that colours the sky
covering the green people moving about.
Dont ask the obvious question 'why'
because, this, I shall explain not.

The trees with their blue leaves,
fidgeting against the red wind blowing
the white barks with their numerous circles
testimony to the numerous years flowing

Throw a stone high up into the ocean
rippling the air as it cuts across the dry
followed by a reflection on the ground
and a shadow reflected on the sky

the colours may be radical, unexpected
but the vision shall remain the same
The actions may be contradictory
but the old feelings are still to blame

India vs Pakistan .. cricket series

This is not about the teams that couldnt go beyond the first round in the world cup. This is about the cricket that I played yesterday. Yeah, we were a group of 9 Indians playing against 9 Pakistanis. It was an initiave of the Pakistanis. They knew my friend and invited him. And my friend like a true Indian gathered the troops i.e others like me. The bat, ball, tape over the ball, wickets, bottles marking the boundary, everything was supplied by the Pakistanis. They apparently play regularly. And our team contained people like me who firstly, cant do much with either the bat or the ball and secondly havent even played cricket once in the past few years.

We played in this huge {park, ground, green area} kind of place in the city. It is a huge area, makes up a sizeable fraction of the city, dotted with lakes, a small reserve etc. The ground that we were playing on, had atleast 10 football games, 5-6 other cricket games, a couple of rugby games, a few kite flyers and frisbee throwers, lots of dog walkers and sunbathers around. We were playing with a taped tennis ball. This form of the ball is the commonly used one in Pakistan, I think. Its the kind of ball that all their famous swingers and fast bowlers have started learning their art with. Its a regular tennis ball that has a regular tape tightly wound around it totally covering it. In this way, the fur of the ball it protected and it becomes a bit heavier also.

Now lets get to the match details. The first match was of 8 overs each. They batted first and scored 71. The runs were scored either through wides (which were more than just a generous amount) or through boundaries. We had a few bowlers who were so quick, that you could grab a few winks between the time the ball is released and the time it reaches the batsman to be hoisted for a six. Yeah, they did seem to have a couple of Afridi followers :D. There was one bowler in our team though, who was stout, bowled very slowly and got 3-4 wickets in his two overs. He was duly rechristened as 'Ramesh Powar' by the opponents :D. The Indians started the chase disastrously, as expected, losing the first wicket in the third ball with one run on the board. Yep that was me :D, clean bowled by a fast bowler who emulates Shoaib Akhtar, i.e his run up starts closer to the boundary than the wicket. And that led to the usual top order collapse. But, then walks out our captain, my friend and like Yuvraj Singh these days, belts the ball everywhere and starts scoring very quickly with a lot of easy looking shots that have the ball 'racing to the boundary'. So, from a really hopeless situation, we were back with a chance to win the match. The game went onto the last ball, of which 3 runs were required but the batsman on strike was not the captain and so we lost.

The second match was just 6 overs each. We chose to bat first and scored 48 runs. This game 'went down to the wire' too. However, this time the Pakistanis required 4 runs of the last ball to win. Then our bowler gave them a wide. So once again, the equation for the last ball was same as before. And they too lost like we had done earlier, being unable to score any run of the last ball. (No, I didnt get to bat in this match. Probably the reason why we won?)

The third and final match (final in all senses ;) ) was again of 8 overs each. We chose to chase this time (I have no idea about the reasoning behind this decision). The Pakistanis went beserk, hitting a sixer every other correct ball (we didnt relent on the wides either). By now, we also had a few tired football players who were resting, following our match with interest. So, they ended up scoring a little over one hundred. And I opened along with my captain this time. My captain started the proceedings with a six of the first ball. That somehow affected their Shoaib Akhtar emulator, who sent down 5 wides :D. And they were really 'wide'. However along came a ball straight onto the wicket, the batsman i.e captain hit it back even straighter and really hard. Standing at the runners position, I worried about the umpire that he would have to be carried off the field as the ball was sure to smash his face. And it would have, had the bowler not stretched his hand and had the ball not stuck to his palm as if there was some glue there! And our captain was gone! Two other wickets tumbled too while I was watching from the non-strikers end. Then in the next over, I got my chance to survive a few wides, score a run, run a few more as the non-striker and finally be completely beaten and bowled. The collapse never stopped and soon we were all out having just scored some 30 runs. True to the Indian style, we buckled helplessly, facing a daunting score to chase in the 'final'.

So my dear readers, it pains me greatly to report that the Pakistanis won the series 2-1. My complete contribution to the Indian team in the series was a single run scored, a few runs saved and a run out.

Trivia: A pakistani guy commented that after Pakistan was kicked out of world cup, he was hoping that atleast India would go through to later stages and there would be some matches worth watching. My friend responded, "we are good neighbours, you came out, so we had to come out too". To which I added, "ofcourse, we are good neighbours, we not just came out in support of you, we also let our other two small neighbours get through."

Ringing in the Spring

Yayy .. its spring time. Its been more than 3 weeks since it rained here. Thats the longest no-rain period since the time I have been here i.e almost 8 months now. Actually, I had to write this post in a hurry, since the ominous clouds have gathered today and seem intent on breaking the dry spell. Anyway, yeah, it had been sunny the past few days, temperatures have gone upto 25 degrees on some occasions. On the afternoons, you could find all the lawns in the university completely covered by human bodies, lying on the grass, soaking up as much sun as they can get, trying to get a bit of colour on their white skins :P.

My chinese flatmate remarked yesterday, 'every season has its own distinct smell'. Frankly, I dont know and dont care :D. But yeah the spring season seems to be quite popular. Last week, when I went to Bristol, I found photographers all over the place, clicking every last image of 'Spring time' that they could lay their eyes upon.

The major change for me however is that I no longer need to wear a jacket or a hoody or a sweater while stepping out. Got so used to wearing one or the other of them all the time that now it feels quite different and new to be going about in just a shirt or tshirt or both :D.

The university has started full scale after the month long Easter break. This break was for undergrads and msc students .. not for staff or research postgrads like me. We just had a measly 5 days.

Finally, though many appreciated the new look of the blog, I have heard a few disgruntled voices too who felt the old dark black one was better. My response to those voices: When it was dark and black as you wanted, you never appreciated it. I only used to hear complaints about how hard it is to read and so on. But now, you come out with your voices into the open and praise the old look rubbishing this new colourful one. Sorry mates, the time has passed, now you got to live with this white-green-orange-blue-red-grey thing :P.
Moral of the story, appreciate something when its there, so that it doesnt go missing before you know it :P.
I better end here before the post gets even worse :D.

a verse and then a few lines

Extravagant verses, may not rhyme
Grandiose metaphors, may not chime
Inherent meanings, often overlooked
Unspoken feelings, standout sublime.

Now, for a change, some quotations, some my own, some I read somewhere in some books.

"Life is running away and I m trying to catch up with it" -(made it up just now :D)

"In just two days tommorow will be yesterday" -(Dont remember)

"Ingenuity is the father of invention" -(my own, was my mail signature for the longest duration)

"I dont exactly know what i mean by that, but i mean it" -(Catcher in the Rye)

"Research is what I am doing, when I dont know what I am doing" -(My own, used to be my signature a year ago)

"It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it." -(Catcher in the Rye .. again)

"Iterative is human, recursive divine" -(read somewhere, used to be my signature too :D)

"Music was like a rose blooming on a boundless snow-covered plain of silence." -(dont remember, brings a nice vision to the mind eh?)

"I dont have to know where I am going, I just need to know where I have been." -(Cars .. the movie .. my current signature)

I moved in time and I didnt know it!

The prerequisite for reading this post is that you should be aware of the crazy policy of daylight saving time that is followed in most parts of the northern western world. I had first experienced it and actually learnt what it meant on the last sunday of the October gone by. It was the day when we had 2am twice :D. That was the day when our timezone got back to GMT from BST (which is GMT+1). And I knew that we would get back to BST i.e lose an hour on the last sunday of march i.e today. But I somehow crazily assumed that it would be on the night of sunday (that is 1am of monday) rather than the early morning of sunday.
So, now that you have been provided with the background, lets get down to the story :D.

It was around 12:30am on 25th mar'07 (late saturday night, early sunday, whatever). We were at a pub with some nice music going on. I prod my friend to go ask the DJ (who seemed to be resting his ears, having taken off his headphones) at what time the pub would be closed. I watch the conversation that goes on between them and notice that the DJ signals both 1 and 2. My friend comes back shaking his head and says, "the DJ said it would close at 1 i.e 2 or something like that". We concluded that maybe the bar would be closed at 1 and that we will be kicked out at 2. Anyway, we left the place at 5 minutes to 1 and started walking back.

We reached my room and noticed that the time on the computer was 2:30. I was flabbergasted. The walk was supposed to take half an hour. It felt so too. But somehow strangely, we apparently walked for 90 mins. Anyway, at that time we were in no position to deliberate on this matter further.

I wake up in the morning and start chatting with my friend Gyan. Soon, he says that his lunch was served and goes away. I notice that the time then on the computer was 9:30am. That would mean that back in India it would have to be +5:30 hrs i.e 3pm, a little late for lunch. But, anything is possible with Gyan, so I ignore it. Then, I go back to sleep again.

The phone rings and wakes me up. After the conversation, I check the time on the small ancient analog battery clock on the table beside the phone and see that the time it displayed was 9:35. I couldnt have slept for just 5 minutes. I felt like I had a restless sleep of much longer duration and I recollected even having a couple of dreams. It couldnt possibly have been in 5 minutes. Intuitively, I check the time in my cellphone. It displayed 10:35. So either my dear clock had slowed down considerably or we have jumped ahead in time and I didnt know it. So, I rush to the pc (which also displayed 10:35 by the way) and check when exactly we would have saved daylight. And realised that it was 1am on the sunday morning. Yeah, while we were walking back. We started before 1 and reached at 2:30, though we had walked for only half an hour :D. And then everything else fell into place. Why the DJ was so confused whether the pub closed at 1 or 2, why Gyan was having lunch so late etc.

The conclusion? Having smart devices like a computer and cellphone which take care of such weird happenings like Daylight Savings automatically sometimes renders us oblivious to some of the joys in life like jumping ahead in time. Thanks to my small antiquish table clock. Otherwise, for anytime soon, I wouldnt have realised that I had missed an hour! I even wonder that some people in these parts of the world who do not have interactions with people from other time zones may not even realise this event most of the time. They may fall back an hour in their sleep and they may jump ahead an hour. But they may not notice that. :)

Trivia: This post was written to prove to the sage that I wasnt in a dreamy state and that I was making coherent sense :D.

A morning verse, written at midnight

Fluttering curtain, an open window
a cold glimpse of the grey sky
breeze, valiant against the bricks
leaves, clinging on to the twigs
early light, dispelling the night.

sleepy eyes, a restless mind
a look at the dry itinerary ahead
work, jostling amongst the meetings
pleasure, finding not its bearings
long day, life rushing on its way.

good? bad? or ugly??

I have been deceived. I knew it was coming. At that time, I had promised myself that if I was indeed being taken for a ride, I would get back strongly, be angry, lash out etc. But now, that I am facing the situation, I dont feel an iota of any emotion. I am not angry, not disappointed, not sad, not even annoyed, though I have every right and reason to be. I seem to be as placid and nonchalant as ever.

Now, what I wonder is, whether being so stoic is a good or a bad thing?? Well, the whole issue is surely ugly :D.

I was about to post ...

1. Felt like blogging.
2. Logged into blogger.
3. Clicked on NewPost.
4. Staring at the textbox, realised that I no longer felt like it.
5. Typed out these points.
6. Will be publishing and signing out.

" All I want is everything?? "

"Hari! take up your usual position", shouted the trainer. Hari grudgingly walked up to his position, a few yards in front of his goal. These days, when he hears these words, he is reminded of the cruel fact that just an year ago, his usual position used to be somewhere near the opponent goal. When he had first joined the school last year, he was quickly elevated to the star striker status. True, it was just a primary school football team comprising of 11-10 year olds. But each member of the team took the whole issue very seriously. In fact, the whole school took their football team very seriously. It was one of the few good things that they could boast of. He was unanimously considered the best player last year. When exactly did things take a turn for the worse, he couldn't figure out now. From being the captain and the primary striker of the team, he was now fighting for his place in the team, that too for the position of a 'lowly' defender as he considered it.

"It is so unfair", he kept repeating to himself as he was waiting for the practice match to start. He had often complained about the unfairness of it all to his father in the last few months. He recollected his father's words. "There is no concept of fairness in life, my boy. So what if you aren’t doing as well in football now? You are still the top ranker in your class, you are still the best speaker among your classmates, you are still the best badminton kid in the colony, you are still the best dancer in the school!! And yeah, you are still the most popular kid that I know". His father had said that last sentence with a wink referring to the numerous girls of his class who kept frequenting his house on one reason or another. His father's reply had succeeded in making him smile then, but did not diminish his fervour to do well in football. It wasn’t sufficient for him that he was the best in some. He wanted to be the best in all of them.

He looked up at the orange sun. He had been playing football every evening, for the whole of past few months, but hasn’t been able to improve. He quietly resolved that he would succeed today. Today's practice match was quite important as at the end of it, the coach would choose the school team for a major match next week which they would be playing against their 'arch-rivals', the school adjacent to theirs. Hari resolved, that not only would he defend well as he is expected to, he would also score a goal.

The twilight was fading quickly. 5 minutes left for full-time, Hari was growing desperate by the second. His team was down 2-0. He knew that all his team members would be blaming him for letting in both the goals. While the first one could be attributed to an unfortunate stroke of luck, he couldn’t ward off blame for the second goal. He had practically gifted away the ball to the goal scorer. Hari realised that the only way to salvage his position in the school team would be to score a goal now. A goal in the dying moments always does wonders to the reputation of the goal scorer. The players of the other team were making many inroads into their penalty area while his team members were defending desperately. Hari notices that the player running towards him with the ball is Balu. He remembers that this guy was first enlisted in the team when Hari was the captain, as a substitute incase Hari gets injured. Now, while Balu is assured of the center forward position, Hari is being forced to compete for a defender position. Angered by this thought, Hari rushes towards Balu, tackles him efficiently without a foul and dribbles the ball in the other direction. Pleased with his effort, Hari now looks in front of him, concentrating on the task ahead. He would have to score a goal now. He is at the middle of the ground now. The forwards of his team are waiting expectantly for a pass. But, Hari puts his head down and continues dribbling his way forward. "I have to score the goal myself", he tells himself. Suddenly, something strikes him and before he knows it, he is lying on the ground, with the ball nowhere to be seen. He looks back just in time to see the ball enter hit the back of the net. His team had conceded yet another goal. He is being glared at by every player of his team. He could even hear some sniggers. Soon, the final whistle is blown.

Hari doesn’t wait to listen to the coach's verdict. He already knows that he is out. He packs his bag and starts walking back to his home. He concludes that he couldn’t possibly feel any worse than he did now. He reaches home, dumps his bag in a corner of his room and falls on the bed with his dirty clothes on, ignoring the shouts of his mother. He turns to look at his shelf full of trophies, many of them products of his previously excellent dribbling skills. He turns away and smiles. Sadly at first, the smile slowly grows larger and brighter. Suddenly, he gets up and stretches his body and jogs his way to the kitchen. He is very pleased with himself now. He had just realized that he no longer cared. He no longer cared about football. Munching on the hot bhajjis and just having a weight cleared of his mind, he looked forward to the daily evening violin lessons that he would be joining tomorrow.

Trivia:
1. This is the 200th post on this blog ... whew!!
2. Why is the protagonist's name Hari?
Ans. When I was in primary school, and we used to have to create sentences (as in 'He is a good boy'), everyone generally used 'Rama' as the default proper noun while I used to use 'Hari' ... for obvious reasons :D.
3. Does this story have a moral or something?
Ans. eh?? /:)
4. Any copyrights?
Ans. All copyrights are held by the author i.e me, mythalez. Producing parts or whole of this work in any form is prohibited without the prior permission of the author.
5. Why in the hell, did you write this?
Ans. Was bored, tired and had nothing better to do. So thought, I would type out a story. It turned out to be this one.

Any either way

There is a threshold, metaphorically a border. It is tough to cross, but not impossible. However, there also is a restoring force which is pretty strong. Although, many attempts are made to cross the threshold with some even being successful, the restoring force acts quickly and strongly enough to get it back to the normal state. The default stable state.

Rarely but surely, there come occasions, when an incursion beyond the threshold is too deep for the restoring force. In such cases, the restoring force may make some feeble attempts to negate the effects of the incursion, but quickly recognizes the high improbability of success and gives up. The vestige of the incursion, a deep glaring gash acts as a constant reminder of that unfortunate incident. Such deep incursions would permanently change the configuration. The older state is no longer viable. A new stable state has to be found and is gradually found after a few fluctuations. And life goes on....

Dont worry, you are at the right place!

Dont be alarmed. No one has taken over this webspace. It still belongs to mythalez :D.

Whee ... i have done it!! I have finally done it. That day had finally come. That day that I miraculously had the energy and the mood and the patience to change the look of my blog! After two and half years, my blog dons new clothes .. urm ... colours :D. Choosing the right colours turned out to be more of a pain than I expected it to be.

Some acknowledgements are in order. Thanks to the sage and the coolcat for their comments on the colour combinations and the sumanth (for lack of a better nick-name) for the pic.

23!!

J'ai vingt trois ans

Gently down the stream

Bubbling over the water
joyously I scream
I just wanna go
gently down the stream

I am made of paper
recycled times thirteen
I just wanna go
gently down the stream

Shaped by a miniature hand
slender fingers of a queen
I just wanna go
gently down the stream

There is a rock in front
covered in moss green
I just wanna go
gently down the stream

I slowly slide beside it
glowing brightly in its sheen
I am happily going
gently down the stream

I surge ahead blithely
moving into the unseen
I just wanna go
gently down the stream

In search of life!!

I was just 8 years old
I was tired of myself
I left my safe home
yeah, I was quite bold

Just at the end of the street ,
I was stopped by a police man.
He enquired where I was going
and why I was being so discreet

I told him I left my home
that I am exploring the world
that I am searching for 'life',
in this endeavor, I am all alone

He let out a smile and let me go
I finally reached the public library
I enquired for books about life
but they laughed! they had none, sorry!

Annoyed and helpless, I set out again
I walked my way to the railway station
I bought a ticket for the last destination
and with high hopes, boarded the train

The train went on and on and on
I asked for 'life' at every station it stopped
they smiled, laughed or looked amused
but 'life', they had no supply! at all none!

But, I did enjoy that train journey
the scenery was awesome, marvellous
with every passing hour and station,
my quest was growing weaker, very very

Finally we reached the final station
I was tired, I wanted rest, wanted to sleep
my wish to search for 'life' disappeared
exhausted I was by this peregrination

No, no! my voyage wasnt in vain
I enjoyed the journey, I had fun
later, I even realised what 'life' was,
It was in the journey, it was the train :)

ps - I have no clue why I wrote this :D .. yeah even my yahoo/gmail current status is 'clueless'

A post by a PhD student

Yeah, I am doing a PhD. Its been almost 5 months now. Many people do ask me what it is all about. And I give hazy fuzzy answers like it is about research, about trying to create/discover/prove something new, something never done before and blah blah :D. As about my work, I knew what area I was dabbling in, what kind of problem I was looking at and so on but didnt have much of a clue on how to go about it. Yeah, I did falter these 5 months, spent time on things which are somewhat irrelevant now, spent some more time on doing things which at that time seemed quite big and important but now appear insignificant. Most of the significant things were done in a day or two. Anyway, I can safely say that now I do know what I am trying to do and how I should go about doing it. Yeah, the path is slowly making itself visible. And yeah, it looks like I shall enjoy walking/running/stumbling/faltering on it :D. And maybe even get lost midway :). Well, thats what Phd is all about. Discover something about the world and at the same time discover something about yourself .. (shouldnt I be giving out this gyaan once I complete the phd .. and not while starting it? :D)

And yeah, I should be changing this template soon. Got kind of bored with it.
And yeah, finally I have written a normal general post after a long long time. No stories, long accounts or 'poetry'! :D
And yeah, I try to bypass the popular PS trend with this 'And yeah' phrase :D

A 'joyride' that only lasted a few months.

It was a few years ago when I first laid my eyes on her. My brother was pretty proud of her, brand new, silvery and most popular among her breed as she was. For the next couple of years, I got the chance to enjoy her pleasures only a few times, that too vicariously (with my brother enjoying her in full). I always assumed that I was not up to the task for her. I felt that she was a bit too much on the heavier side for me. But 9 months ago, she was handed down to me as a kind of sibling inheritance. I gingerly mounted her and revved her up. She squeaked meekly at first, then roared and jumped into action. She was quite docile unlike what I had expected. Powerful she was indeed, but friendly too. She bore all the errors arising out of my inexpertise patiently with just an occasional grunt. But soon, I started learning the tricks of the trade and slowly became fluent at the job.

For the next 4 months, we were almost inseparable. We always went out together. All my friends saw us together, many of them with gaping faces. They had never thought that I could handle such a being. Yeah, we did make an odd pair. But do appearances matter, when the two involved are blissfully happy?! As with every story, there is a twist. I had to leave, go far far away, while she would still remain at my home. I think she was as sad as me about the imminent parting. She even injured herself on the final day. For the next 4 months, I never saw her. I just used to enquire about her well-being from my father.

And then, I returned. So 8 months after we had first grown close to each other, I saw her again. It was re-ignition on the first meet after the break and again we were together for the whole of my stay. We had lot of fun the last 20 days. We even went to places we had never been before. Yesterday afternoon, when we were coming back after meeting a few friends, I realized that it would be our last outing ever. I was flying back the next day, i.e a few hours from now. I may not be able to lay my sights on her again. Soon, she would be sold, handed over to another person, to be used or abused. I just hope that she falls into good hands which would take good care of her and that she has a good and complete life.

Ironically, her makers had done her injustice at birth, with the tagline. She was a nice Bajaj Pulsar 150cc silver model. ‘Definitely male’ she wasn’t. :D

My 'Voyage' to India

The Schedule:
20th December
5:30 am (GMT): Bus from Southampton
7:25 am (GMT): Bus to reach London (Heathrow Airport)
10:05 am (GMT): Air-India Flight AI124 to takeoff from Heathrow Terminal 3
11:55 pm (IST): Flight to land at Mumbai International Airport
21st December
02:05 am (IST): Flight AI824 to takeoff from Mumbai International Airport
03:30 am (IST): Flight to land at Hyderabad International Airport

If only it had happened that way!!

19th December - Southampton:

3:30pm (time in GMT unless stated otherwise): Just reached room. Need to finish off the perishables in the kitchen and do the laundry before packing.

4:30pm: Successfully finished the remaining onions, tomatoes, eggs and bread. No other perishables left. Sumptuous lunch.

5:30pm: Trying to figure out all the tasks that need to be done and also the stuff that needs to be packed.

7:30pm: Done with laundry. Need to finish the other tasks and also start packing.

10:00pm: Done with all the tasks. The shoulder bag is packed and all set for the journey. No other luggage. Computer has been shut down for the first time in months.

11:00pm: In friend's room having dinner. Collected a gift to deliver to his friend.

11:30pm: In another friend's room who has already left. Spending the night here as it is closer to the bus stop.

20th December - Southampton:

01:00am: Going to sleep. Bon nuit!

04:15am: Awake! Bon jour! Need to get ready!

04:55am: Started walking towards the bus stop. The temperature at this time according to the BBC website is -1 degree Celsius.

05:15am: Reach the bus stop. A couple of other early travelers also present. Its freezing cold

05:30am: Bus has not arrived yet. My feet are almost frozen.

05:50am: Finally the bus arrives. Boarded it, feeling very sleepy.

07:20am: Bus reached Heathrow Airport. London is even colder. Rushed into the building

08:26am: All formalities done. Waiting in the departure lounge. The Air-india officer was quite surprised at the absence of check-in luggage. Half the staff in the airport seem to be desi. Lots of desi passengers too.

09:30am: Still to be told the boarding gate. Quite bored! Looked at all the shops. They are mainly the top fashion houses ranging from Prada to YSL.

10:05am: This is the actual flight departure time. Still no boarding gate information in the display boards. Air India flight delayed as usual?

10:30am: Still no change in the display. I initiate conversation with a desi guy sitting a few empty chairs away. He too is waiting for some AI flight to Delhi. His was scheduled at 8:45am and has been delayed to 1pm apparently. I ask him if there is any Air-India desk or something nearby where we can get information about these delays, but he had no clue either.

11:30am: Bored! Sleeping intermittently. Flight status is still the same. Flights scheduled after it have even left. The desi acquaintance went with someone murmuring something about some coupons. Lots of desi people around, waiting, so I conclude that my silly fears that the display maybe faulty and that I may have missed the flight etc are umm.. silly. The most irritant was that the display still showed "Please wait" beside the flight information, instead of something like "Delayed to *time* " as it did with some other such unfortunate flights.

12:10pm: I walk around trying to locate the airline help/transfer desks. Found a lot of them at one end of the terminal. But it didnt seem to contain Air-India. Return to the sitting area. Had been calling my friends in India and talking, trying to drive away the boredom. No interesting characters around in the airport for me to keep myself occupied through observation or conversation.

12:40pm: The desi acquaintance returns. I suggest that we both go find the Air-India desk and enquire to which he agrees.

12:50pm: Finally locate the Air-India desk. It is among the airline desks that I had come across earlier. But it had no board displaying its name, so there was no way of guessing that it was Air-India's counter. Waiting in the queue. Second in line. But the group in front of me, some European nationals, seemed to be having some major issue.

1:10pm: My desi acquaintance left the queue frustrated at the wait. A desi girl who was chattering non stop on her cell phone complaining about the delayed flight finally ends her conversation and then approaches me and exclaims that we have similar model mobiles. She is the typical BBCD (British born confused Desi :D). She starts telling about the troubles that she faced while uploading music onto the phone and then looking at my expression guesses that I must be in computers. She continues and informs me that she is into teaching multimedia and that she is waiting for the other delayed AI flight. She elaborates on her ‘predicament’ which is that she needs to know when the flight would reach Mumbai (the other flight also goes to Mumbai but via Delhi) as there would be a cab waiting to take her to Pune and so on. Ends her almost monologue with a glowing face informing that she would be going to Goa. “For the new year?” I ask and receive the answer in affirmative. She then hops up and down, catches the attention of the AI official, asks him for the predicted arrival time of her flight to Mumbai and then leaves bidding me good bye.

1:20pm: There is a long queue behind me, many in a similar situation as me with connecting flights to Bangalore, Chennai etc and are in deep agitated conversation about the inefficiency and the technical backwardness of Air-India and its aircrafts which cannot land or take-off in slightly foggy conditions while other airlines are able to do so.

1:30pm: We are informed that AI124, the flight that I am waiting for is currently in Paris having been diverted there due to fog in Heathrow. Passengers on my flight have their boarding passes attested with free lunch in the airport restaurant while the other Air-India flight finally lands.

1:45pm: I am led to a table in the posh sounding French restaurant after having to stand in a queue to enter it. I study the menu and those exotic sounding French dishes whose explanation whizzes over my head, the only words that I am able to register are ‘chicken’, ‘vegetarian’, ‘salmon’, ‘lamb’ and ‘ham’.

2:15pm: The waiter finally comes to my table and takes the order. The couple on the next table had been advising me to wave my arms full-stretched to beckon him. Thankfully that wasn’t required.

2:30pm: My meal arrives and looking at it my hunger disappears. I had ordered some ‘Smoked salmon on toast’ hoping to get some roasted stuff. However I guess the cook forgot to even smoke the salmon.

2:40pm: Manage to make the meal appear finished having hidden large tracts of salmon among the generous dosage of spinach at the centre of the plate.

3:30pm: I am still at the restaurant, resting on the comfortable couch. The waiter had not presented me with the bill yet.

3:45pm: My every 5 minute glance at the flight information display pays dividends finally. My flight has arrived and its boarding gate has been announced. Now I frantically look for the waiter to pay the bill (which would basically mean display my boarding pass as it is AI sponsored meal)

4:00pm: Finally, I leave the restaurant, go in search of the boarding gate and realize am the last one in the queue. A very, very long queue. So I sit on a bench slightly farther away. No point in standing in a queue if you are the last one anyway :D.

4:30pm: Waiting at the departure gates.

4:45pm: Enter the plane. I discover that once again, I have the middle seat. Even on my flight to London four months ago, I was in the middle seat. Then, the window seat was occupied by a very old Gujarati lady who knew only Gujarati, no Hindi, no English. The aisle seat was occupied by a Bangalorean dressed in a suit who also didn’t know Hindi. I thought he was some executive only to realize later that he was also a student going to UK to pursue some MS degree! To top it off, the lady was interfering in the matters of the Bangalore guy and with them not having any common language, I had to act as the interpreter of Gujarati to English and vice versa!

4:55pm: I meet my neighbours for this flight. A gujarati old man in the aisle seat and a gujarati middle aged aggressive man in the window seat. I wonder why Air-India disliked me so much!?

5:45pm: The aggressive man had already started complaining about the ‘poor Air-India service’ even before the crew had a chance to start the service. Then the crew started distributing some namkeen packets. The guy immediately requests the air hostess to hand him his jacket from the storage above.

5:48pm: The air hostess comes around handing out juices this time. She hands out to the old man and me. She then extends her hand with the drink for the aggressive guy, but he doesn’t seem to respond. I turn to look at what he is doing and find that he is filming the namkeen packet with his digicam. At my wits end, I try to figure out why he was doing such a weird thing. Then, he looks up at the air hostess with a smirk and mockingly asks her what the date on the packet was. I look and find it to be 19^th December. But it was the manufacturing date. And clearly below it was written that the item was “best before 4 months from date of manufacture”. The air hostess says the same thing and goes with a huff. The guy is perplexed and asks me what before meant in this context! The guy’s hopes of a grand expose of Air-Indian substandard quality have been vanquished.

21^st December – near Mumbai

1:15am GMT or 6:45am IST: I finally wake up after having been asleep almost all through the flight (even ate the meals with half closed eyes). The old man sweetly remarks how I could have slept so comfortably for so long. I inform him of my early rise the previous day. The other guy hadn’t stopped grumbling yet. The air hostess finally hands him the departure card that he had requested and that shuts him up for a while. That’s when he brings out his passport which is Red in colour. On closer inspection, I realize that he is a British citizen!! The old man expresses his inability to read and write. So the British guy fills a card for him also. I don’t fill any since Mumbai wasn’t my final destination.

21^st December – Mumbai

7:15am IST (all times from now on are in IST) – Mumbai: Finally landed in India J. 7 hours late.

7:35am: Out of the plane. At the transit counter, a couple of Air India people are standing at a desk bang in the middle of the path and stopping passengers from going further. Looking at the connecting flights, they are informing them whether their flight had left or not. Two queues have formed on either side of that desk.

7:40am: They inform the person in front of me that his flight had left, so he would have to go down, collect his checked-in luggage and go to the domestic terminal where a Jet airways flight would take him in and fly him to his destination. Then, they look at my boarding pass and that of two girls (sisters apparently) at the front of the other queue and repeat the instructions to us also. Upon enquiring, they also reassure us that no other document is required and this invalidated boarding pass would be sufficient to get us a ticket on the Jet Airways flights. He also mentions that the flight is scheduled somewhere around 10am.

7:50am: We (the two girls and me) walk down to the arrivals area. In conversation I learn that the elder one (who was strikingly attractive, by the way) had finished her graduation in UK and is going to Delhi. So yeah, they will be on a different flight. Alas.

8:15am: Fill up the arrival forms, go through the immigration and reach the check-in luggage area. Since I had no checked-in luggage I move ahead to the customs while the sisters wait there with the rest of the crowd for their luggage.

8:20am: I go beyond the customs without any one scanning my bag. No one is there at the counter! I just walk through. The customs officials must had presumed it would take some time for people to collect their checked-in luggage and come to the customs area. So they must have been taking their time having tea perhaps. Little did they expect some weird passenger like me with just a cabin bag.

8:30am: I follow the arrows for “free coach for transit passengers to domestic terminal” and end up going outside the building, where a policeman beckons me. He asks me in his typical Mumbaiyya Hindi to go back in and wait in some waiting area for the coach. My first taste of Mumbai :D.

8:40am: No coach yet. Me and another person are the only people in the waiting area. He too didn’t have any checked-in luggage. I look around to make a phone call to home. There are two options: a local phone and a credit card based ISD phone. No STD phone. So weird!

9:00am: A few more people also join us in the waiting room. They also had missed their connecting flights to Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad etc. All had been told the same thing as me. No coach yet though. The policeman comes in and asks me to call some internal number and request them to send the coach. I do that and convince the person on the other side of the phone that unless he sends the coach immediately, we would all miss our flights.

9:05am: The policeman comes again and informs that the coach had arrived. We, the few people in the waiting room, all move out and board it. I hope that those two girls also board this bus but they don’t. I guess they were still at the luggage and customs area.

9:10am: The bus after going through some internal airport route (my hopes of seeing Mumbai dashed) halts in front of some terminal. Non Indian-Airlines passengers are asked to get down there. And so we do. I had been discussing our plight with a couple who had been on the same flight and are headed for Bangalore. We enter the terminal and head towards the Jet Airways desks.

9:15am: The male of the Bangalore couple and me approach the Jet Airways officials, show them our boarding passes and give them the other details. Apparently, we were the first ones from our flight to have approached them. They reply saying that we need to have a request document from the Air-India people stating blah blah. We tell them that the Air-Indian officials had assured us that the boarding pass would suffice and so on. But, they express their inability to do anything without the required document and suggest that we go to the Air-India office nearby and request for that document.

9:25am: The guy and me finally reach that famed Air-India sales office. It was a 5 minute walk as we had been told. But the office was in a dilapidated building, with a very small board, behind a vast wasteland, almost invisible from the road. Yeah, finally I did walk on Mumbai roads, dodging the autos and taxis and the innumerable pedestrians. We explain our situation to whoever we found in that office and he informed us that the officials who could help us would arrive at 9:45. So we stand outside and wait.

9:40am: Many employees had come in, got their cards punched, some went into the offices upstairs, some went back outside. None went into the office that we were waiting for. Finally a person comes out of that office and enquires about our problem. He was a friendly man, took us into his office and started making phone calls to get to the person responsible for the transit of our flight.

9:45am: He is not totally successful, but he is informed that an Air-India person by the name ‘Lokhande’ is at the Jet Airways counter and helping people of our flight get their new boarding passes. So we head back to the terminal. Run back actually, as we had been told that the flight was around 10.

9:50am: We reach the Jet Airways counter, his wife who had been waiting for us tells us that she had seen no Air-India personnel anywhere. Even we don’t find that ‘Lokhande’ anywhere. We enquire with the Jet Airways people again. We also meet another person who had been on our flight and missed his connecting flight to Hyderabad. The Jet Airways people now recognize the legitimacy of our boarding pass and inform us that the flights are scheduled at 2pm for Bangalore and 3:30pm for Hyderabad!! Wasn’t I supposed to have been in Hyderabad by 3:30am!!

9:55am: The Hyderabad-headed guy tells me that there is an Air-Sahara flight to Hyderabad at 10:55am and suggests that we should get our flight transferred to that one.

10:00am: He and I approach the Air Sahara desk. The person at the counter is eager to get us on his flight. However, he too states that a document which is a kind of form is required from the Air-India people with our details. He also enlightens us that there is an Air-India office on the first floor of Terminal 1-A (we were in 1-B) where we could get this done. Before rushing off, I confirm with him that there still are vacant seats in that flight.

10:07am: We reach the required terminal. The guy with me had a lot of luggage. Two huge suitcases and two bags. So he was actually pushing the trolley on the roads of Mumbai. It was quite a funny scene. But he was quite good at it. He would give it a shove and then step on it and be carried along. It was almost like he was skateboarding. We find an Air-India counter, but it is not manned by anyone. Also it stated that it only entertained enquiries and not bookings.

10:10am: After asking around a bit, we remember that we had been told that it was on the first floor. So I leave my new found compatriot-in-trouble (brother-in-arms?) and climb the steps to the first floor. It didn’t have any Air-India counter, but there was an Indian-Airlines counter. I explain the situation to them, hoping somehow that they would be of help! (after all, they also belong to the govt right?). But ofcourse, they had nothing to do with our situation.

10:20am: I go back to where my friend is waiting, and we wait beside the Air-India counter hoping someone would come by soon. We start chatting and he tells me that he had been living in the US since the past 7 years, working there. His journey had started on 19^th itself. Poor guy, he had boarded that doomed flight at Chicago and was waiting in the flight and at Paris airport while I was waiting at Heathrow.

10:30am: Someone had come to the counter. A few other hopefuls like us headed for Bangalore have also come. Anyway, we are the first ones and my friend explains the situation, while I guard the luggage.

10:35am: The person asks for our boarding passes, flight tickets etc.

10:40am: He starts writing out that document and hands it over to us. It is our ticket, is what he says.

10:45am: We are on the road, rushing back to the other terminal. My friend with his trolley is actually going faster than me. He is practically skating on the road!!

10:50am: We present the document to that Air-Sahara official, get the luggage security-checked. The flight is scheduled at 10:55am.

10:55am: We are rushed through the security check and enter the departure gate area. Finally, I get time to make a phone call to home and inform them of my position and the time I would be reaching Hyderabad.

11:15am: Finally, they ask us to get into the buses which take us to the plane. This flight too delayed? I wonder.

11:25am: My friend and me are the last ones to board the flight. Just as we are about to get on the steps, my friend realizes that he didn’t have his passport bag with him! Flabbergasted, he runs back to the main counter to check whether he had left it somewhere there. What more in store today! I wonder.

11:30am: I enter the flight. I check the boarding pass to see that my seat was 3J. I look at the first seat which was evidently first-class and there were 3 rows of first-class seats.

11:32am: Yeah, I had been given a first-class seat. Was some higher being making up for all the trouble that I had undergone until then? Well, sitting on those sofa type seats dispelled all my exhaustion.

11:40am: My friend enters the flight. Luckily, he found his passport bag at the place where the luggage is security-checked. Apparently, he had forgotten it in the trolley. But the people manning the xray machine put it aside, expecting him to return. Thankfully.

12:05pm: All set, we finally take off for Hyderabad.

01:40pm: Yayy! I land at Hyderabad airport. Flying first-class was awesome. The airhostess was pretty eager to serve us :D.

PS: I should have written this when I arrived in Hyderabad, not now .. when I am about to leave. Hopefully my return flight wont be as eventful enough that I would need to blog about it.