Bal Wale Paranthe

God is a concept that I could never believe in till yesterday...

...and I am still uncomfortable in acknowledging that I accept it or have suddenly turned into a believer...I don't think I have but I certainly have been forced to think about it...when biji took the heavenly abode yesterday.

I have always been uncomfortable with the concept of God because I always believed in the human strength and human will. I always believed that God was like an escape route, like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or people...temporary addictions to help you escape from reality. I believed it was an imaginary being that we were more comfortable trusting our locus of control with, not keeping it internal for the fear of failing and not keeping it external for the fear of being failed, such that it was always comfortable for us to have this imaginary control center. I believed that it was still always you who was doing what you had to do, while crediting or discrediting God for the results.

However, it was really the credit that was given to him that used to make me uncomfortable and made me almost resent him, at times even a bit jealous maybe. It was the surrender of the absolute power in him that made me even more of a disbeliever, when "God's Will" seemed to be the most escapist expression ever to me. I believed I was an aethist for this reason but being a bit non-confrontational, I was more comfortable declaring myself to be agnostic.

My biji died yesterday, the same day as when papa passed away 5 years ago. This, I am certain is not co-incidence. She was bed ridden for a long time and was just hanging on. I saw her a couple of weeks ago before coming back to London and she wasn't able to move much. She couldn't talk much and couldn't recognize me at times.

But she got some strength somehow from somewhere, at times when she recognized me, to lift her hand to hold my hand and bring it to her lips to kiss them, or to pat on my head when I would go to her room to see her. And she got some strength from somewhere to carry on in this world till it was time for her to join her son on his birthday of another world, on their birthday together in heaven. Not a co-incidence and I am more convinced than ever about where she found the strength to carry on.

"Biji, aapke jaise bal waale paranthe koi nahin bana sakta". I know listening to this always made you happy and I hope it does this time too.

Love,

Jatin

The Oracle

This is yours truly's claim at being one. Just posting a random chat with a dear friend of mine, where I made a strong case for it. Bullshitting apart, I think the chat is funny enough to make its way here. I hope you would enjoy reading this one:

12:23 PM rahul*: wats up mite
12:27 PM mite tell mite wat is up
1:26 PM me: sorry mite been busy all morning and then was off for lunch sorry to keep you waiting for a reply i hope thats ok mite is it ok mite?
1:27 PM u there mite?
respond mite
1:28 PM
rahul: hmmmm ok no problem
1:38 PM rahul: Suna de kuch Navee taazi
me: kuch khaas hai nahin mere paas sunane ke liye
do you have any specific questions that you want to ask?
1:43 PM rahul: Nopes
1:44 PM me: too bad veere
1:45 PM rahul: I am bored
Hv wrk
But nt the will to do it
Suggest sthg$
1:46 PM me: work...
rahul: Will Nahin hai
Kya karoon
me: mummy ko bol chai bana dein
1:47 PM rahul: Done
Drank
me: this problem is getting more and more complex as we explore it more
damn...
rahul: I like tht
Carry on
rahul: Give ur perspective
me: so my perspective on the issue of lack or absence of will is that you need to see the bigger picture
and the bigger picture really is that the amount of money in your bank account when you die is a multiple of the amount of extra work that you did in your life that you shouldn't have
the objective should be that you should have none when you die...
there are two ways of achieving this...
1) do only as much as you need to keep the job
1:51 PM rahul: This shit is interesting
Carry on
1:52 PM me: 2) estimate the extra amount of money that you could have in your bank when you die...calculate the monthly installments of this future value...and start transferring this monthly amount to your friend's accounts starting now
you always have a choice of choosing between the two if we assume rationality on your behalf, which we could we would of course choose option 1 for you
1:53 PM given that...the question that we are really trying to answer here is not if you have the will to finish the work or not...
but if you really need to do the work at hand or not...
to keep your job
rahul: Wow
I don't!!!!
me: then you have your answer
rahul: I can easily laze arnd this evening n still be fine
Yohoooo!!!
I love u gullu
me: there is a caveat realted to this though
rahul: Suddenyl
me: ha ha ha
before you start lazing around...
just give a thought to what is absolute latest by which you need to finish this work before you hit the point where you would lose your job for not finishing it this would help you estimate the minimum and maximum amount of time that you could laze around without worrying about anything else
1:56 PM the reason this question is critical is to make sure you are able to maximize the utility that you get from lazing around
let me know if you would need my help for solving that problem
rahul: Wow
me: ha ha this conversation can go on my blog
rahul: I can easily not do anything the entire evening today
me: whatsay?
rahul: Even tom morning
Btw
This is a pretty cool absurd conversation
1:58 PM I am overwhelmed with the quality Of ur bullshitting And I am also feeling energized To laze arnd
Oxymoron?
Energized to laze arnd?
me: ha ha ha ha
certainly...
and one of the best ones I have heard in a long
2:08 PM me: so do you think i should put this on my blog?
i think i should
rahul: Yes
me: good
will do
2:11 PM rahul: Gud stuff
The reassurance helped me
I'll enjoy my eve without any guilt now
me: you know where to come to ask any questions about life or anything about it that are bothering you
I am the oracle ....

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

Ha ha ha....bulshitting that I am proud of....hope you enjoyed it...

-j

* Rahul, more popularly known as Rathi, is a dear friend of mine for I don't remember how many years now. For those of you know him, you would agree that there is no worse di*@head than him. For those who don't, I have put a link at the end to his facebook profile if you still want to get to know him. He is looking to get married soon too. In case you know a nice, homely and not so well educated Marwari Maheshwari girl, then please let me know and I shall take forward the rishta with his mom....ladhki raj karegi...

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=media#!/profile.php?id=628486711&ref=ts

Invictus

Its been just a little while since my last post and I am back at it again. This is a bit unusual for me of late as I generally write only when I feel like. Lazy and unimaginative as I am, the 'feel like' feeling has to make a lot of effort to overpower me and force me to write. Actually, that's bullshit - I write almost every month here and most of it is gibberish, just that the first three sentences seemed to be flowing well.

Anyhow, I am writing this one hoping for two things. That:

1) this would be short

2) this would be sensible

...and I have a strong feeling that I might fail miserably on both counts.

I was just reading 'Invictus' by William Ernest Henley. For those of you who haven't read it as yet, here it is:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

I am quite sure that given the kind of intellectually supercharged audience that my blog attracts, all of you who are reading this post, would have already read this poem and thought through it. I have read the whole poem quite a few times in my life and a significant proportion of the total number of times happened just before I started writing this post.

I really believe that this poem is outrageously amazing, despite the fact that I am obviously quite unintelligent and shallow to understand it any deeper than what it sounds. I wouldn't talk about the poem itself and what it means to me or according to me. But here is a serious suggestion - read it out aloud...really really loud...as if you are reciting it to impress for your life...as if you are acting it out on stage to please for your life...you know what I mean.

I just feel that this poem is so strong that while you read it out aloud, it makes you real. It shouts back at you aloud, telling you what you really want and how bad you want it. I don't know and can't be sure if it would work for you, it certainly didn't work for me the way I described it. Not because what I said above is bullshit but because I was so obsessed by the possibility of writing about it, that I missed the moment :-)

PS: The last two lines of this poem are certainly the strongest set of words that I have ever read or heard in my life. If you disagree or have any other suggestions, do leave a comment.

The Remote

What do you write when you have nothing to write about?

That's probably the question I may end up answering by the end of this post. Got nothing to do on a pretty enventless wednesday evening, during a break from work that I didn't need with an empty feeling that I don't like. With all these questions ringing in my head that I hate to think about. Why can't life have a fast forward button that we can just press and get the answers to these annoying little big questions.

Just on that thought, it would certainly be very cool to have something like that - a button that you could press to fast forward to the next significant moment in life. Like meeting a new person that is going to play a significant part in your life, or getting that job that you're going to love doing for the rest of your life (if at all something like that exists), or buying that dream home, or watching that movie that had a kickass impact on you (atleast for the next few weeks), or anything even remotely significant like that.

Imagine how cool will that be - we all come in to this world, spend the first 10 years in slow motion, dreading and hating everyday at school, actually doing all the homework ourselves in the evening!!! Then when you turn 10 or any such cut-off age limit (I am assuming that there would be laws about what is the legal age at which children are given their fast forward remote), in a much celebrated ceremony where all your friends and family are present - YOU ARE HANDED OVER THE FAST FORWARD REMOTE!!!!

You're so excited about the remote that you fast forward the rest of the night and jump straight to the zero hour at school where you flaunt it to all your friends who are younger than you - of course the older ones already have theirs and they have chosen to fast forward through the zero hour! Then you go into your first lecture, find it boring, fast forward to the nextat the start of that one, you go straight to the recess. Of course there is a learning curve here as well. You make frequent stops at first, at most things that seem important to you at first - you are curious to see how that chick that you have a crush on is going to look like tomorrow and if she is going to give you a smile at all, then probably to the moment where you embarass yourself by going upto her when she was around her friends - you would for sure fast forward a lot after you come back totally humiliated.

Its a bit fascinating to think back and map the kind of things in your life that you would stop to see and witness, at every stage of your life - the kind of things that take priority at such stages. I started the post with a small sample of things that I would be looking forward to at this moment. That list is of course not exhaustive but indicative. I also spoke of a few things that came to my mind when I thought of the highlights of one's school times. Even that list is indicative btw and not necessarily of my time at school...I do posess a very fertile imagination :-)

A few interesting issues that come to my mind, if such a gadget were to exist. A few random ones that I am jotting down here...

1) Would things be as exciting if this remote had a rewind button as well? I guess not, else some people would forever be young and would keep doing the same thing to the same people ever and ever again...you know the obsessive kinds :-) Imagine fast forwarding your entire life quickly to see if you are ever going to sleep with Scarlett Johansson right after watch 'Vicky Christina Barcelona' (though I wonder who would stop to watch it), and on realising that you won't, you can't go back back and be with any of the other women that you were with!!!!

2) The lack of a rewind button would also mean that you might never know what you've missed out on! You might get to a random day where you are feeling great or feeling absolutely terrible and you also know why - just that you weren't there to witness it. Now that could be really disappointing, really depressing or even ver very relieving, depending on what you've missed! I could go on to low level design and functional issues of the gadget at this point but would totally avoid that since I am just talking about a totally random concept that you're probably sick of and I am not :-)

3) No one would have that many friends on facebook! Everyone would know and be in touch with only the few truly important people in their lives, and at only the few events that are important to both of them.

4) What this might also mean is that there would be much less noise in each of our lives due to random characters that we can easily...well...fast forward! Much less stress and much less confusion. Though, this one assumes rationality and an upward sloping learning curve on part of human beings - an assumption that most significant economic theories stand on and the one that proves to be their most significant limitation :-)

5) You would end up spending a lot more time with your parents. If not yours, most of their significant stops would be around you - when you fell seriously , got your first report card, got expelled from school for the first time, when they found out about each of your vices :-) ...they would certainly stop at many more of those embarassing moments that you would rather fast forward!!!!

I can probably go on with these random implications (actually I can't...had to think hard to come with these ones except for the Scarlet Johansson example :-) ) but it would be interesting to build on this list through the comments section of this post...so go on and write a comment at least now guys!!!!

PS: Its a bit fortunate that we dont have such a gadget as yet, since I would have never stopped to write this post then :-)

-j

A day in the life of a...

...well, maybe you could fill in the blanks at the end of that title via your comments to this post after reading it. I know I might be serving myself on a platter to most of you here but I don't mind...I don't mind and I remain an optimist at heart.

This one is again about the day that I have had. I remember the last time I travelled to London in January, I had had a day eventful enough to deserve a full post and its interesting that this time as well this day has forced me to write.

Unlike the last time, this time my mom cried when I left for the airport. I am still amazed that she didn't cry the last time around...ha ha ha...I am such a mean ass!!! So, I was well on my way to airport and I was already late - you can imagine how late I had been from the fact that a friend of mine pinged me on gtalk to ask if I had reached the airport when I was online from home, checking e-mails just before stepping in for a shower. Managed to reach the airport just about 50 minutes before the departure which was too late even after I had done a web check-in. As I entered the airport, I had a strategy in mind - a simple one at that - to unleash yours truly's charm on the lady behind the counter!!!! And it did pay off well...as a matter of fact, as per the latest valuations it was worth Rs. 21,000 for 10 minutes as you'll find out through the rest of this blog :-)

Essentially, I was very late for the flight and reached just in time before the flight was about to be closed. I was already in implementation mode and had started a conversation with the woman at the counter (Her name was Leena as I was about to find out) when she told me that I had excess baggage of about 15 kgs. I'll spare you guys the details but net net, I didn't have to pay a penny for it :-)

Actually, let me mention some more details here just so that this one follows the tradition of my excruciatingly long posts...ha ha...kidding...i'll try to keep this one short...errrrrrr...I had convinced Leena to waive off 5 kgs to start with as that was the maximum that she could have. I had to agree to pay for the rest 10kgs and that was about Rs. 14K. If you know me as well as my brother, you can imagine that the first person that I thought of when I was told I had to pay an extra 14K was him...his face just flashed across my eyes and I could already hear him abusing me for being how I am! But thankfully American Express came to my rescue here as my card was declined when they took it for charging the money...I couldn't have loved them more for failing me at this moment. I couldn't have loved the 3 ATMs in the terminal as well for failing me at this instance as all three either didn't read my debit card or were out of service...what luck!!! On learning about the situation, Leena's boss asked her to off-load me off the flight but again I somehow managed to get through this situation and was rushed to the plane.

Here I was, boarding the plane and on call with my Parjayiji (my bro's wife - Shubhra) assuring her that I would take care of myself this time around and would not run on the roads or anywhere near them for sure, while walking towards my seat - 39G - that I had chosen while checking-in on the web. On the call, I was telling her (actually just bragging about my exploits) how I had saved the family 21K today and was wondering at the same time that while it was nice to have checked-in but the major disadvantage was that it eliminates any possibility of being upgraded to business....yessssssss....you caught the drift!!!! When I reached what was supposed to be my seat and looked at my boarding pass - I saw that my seat was 12G - in the business class.....hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....this is what went on in my mind - verbatim - hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Now like the last post about my travel experience, there is a cab driver story to this one as well. This time my cab driver was a Pakistani who had settled here for some 3 decades and claimed to be a boxer and a boxing coach. I saw the posters of his gym and he had some interesting stories to tell and interesting topics to talk about. He spoke of Islam and what he was doing to make people aware of the fact that Mullahs do not represent the religion, told me about his fights and the boxers he is now training. Interestingly, his prodigy is an Indian student who is hoping to turn professional soon and that he was training this one for free! The most amusing part about the conversation though was when he asked for free advice from me about his boxing club and gym business on learning that I was a management consultant - I was stumped for a while! Of course, I did manage to bull shit my way out of it and that re-inforced my belief that I have the basics of becoming a successful consultant :-) Though the bad part is that I advised him for free without any excuse for passing it off as a business development exercise!

A day that was funny at times, exciting, interesting or relaxing at others, came to a beautiful end when I decided to step out for food. I realised that my hotel was very close to the tower bridge and decided to walk towards it. This is such a beautiful city that is so capable of giving you so very beautiful moments even when you walk alone through its streets or by the bank of the thames. I find myself quite incapable and unwilling of articulating the totally tremendous walk that brought this day to a close - but I did end up not eating anything as my soul had been truly fed by the end of it!!! Wah wah....wah wah...kya line likhi hai...fir se padho...I find myself quite incapable and unwilling of articulating the totally tremendous walk that brought this day to a close - but I did end up not eating anything as my soul had been truly fed by the end of it!!!

Quite hungry and sleepy now!!!

-j

I love a rainy night...

I do..I do...its just the most brilliant thing in the world...sitting in my balcony...the -jpod* playing the beautiful song by the same name by eddie rabbit...with a totally joyful breeze flowing...and am blogging...after long...and the effect of all this is so magical that its a bit funny how needlessly happy I feel suddenly, quite different from the feeling of purposelessness and frustration five minutes ago. This feeling of purposelessness is actually why I came to my balcony in the first place and what followed is how this blog post started .

"Ooooh! Gulati senti ho raha hai!!! He is talking about purposelessness and frustration and shit???". Well, yes indeed. I have been upto nothing useful for a bit now, not since 24th Jan at least, except for really enjoying my brother's wedding last week. Days since then have been pretty boring since I can't move around a lot too freely due to the accident. "Accident!!!!! Fuck...when did that happen?? How??". Too animated..isn't it...because if you're reading this, chances are that you already know about 'The Accident'...with full graphic details of the entire experience. Despite that, I am going to document the experience here, if for nothing else for the sake of history..for the sake of documenting every significant detail of an illustrious life. I mean c'mon, yours truly and his blog are going to be an important part of human history...c'mon...you've always felt that, now acknowledge it too :-)

A significant detail of my life!!! I don't know about that, though a major accident is supposed to be significant. Not due to the trauma related to it but due to the 'life changing experience' it might turn out to be. I mean I certainly remember so many interviews on TV about "how this accident was a life changing experience", "gave me a fresh perspective on life", "made me realise that life is too short to waste", "blah blah blah". But for a very strange reason that I am not too happy about, I don't feel any of this...damn it!!! Maybe I am too dumb or too shallow to feel any of these gloriously complex emotions. Or maybe I am wired to be very optimistic for not even a moment when I was under the truck or in the hospital, did I feel that I am going to die. Actually, there were a couple of moments that I remember when I thought "This is it" - MJ style - once when the truck was still running over me.

So, this is how it happenned...and its possible that you are reading this post because you asked me on gtalk or on phone about "How did it happen??"...and I gave you the link to this post...so pay attention. I was in London for a project (guess you already know that) and it was a sunday afternoon. I had woken up late and had decided to step out for a jog. Outside my building, but within the apartment complex, there was a Tesco delivery truck that was parked next to the side walk. And I was on this sidewalk towards the rear of the truck tuning the radio of my phone before starting to jog. There were two reasons I was doing this - the station that I usually listened to was not playing that sunday!!! And I did not have my -jpod* then - thanks Shubhra and Prashant for the lovely birthday gift :-) So back to the accident - I actually don't remember the moment when I got hit by the truck. I have this memory of keeping the phone in my pocket and taking the leap to start jogging and then the next one of being run over. While I was being run over, it took me a while...a few miniseconds maybe...to figure out what was happenning. What I remember next is that I was trapped under the front axle of the truck - I had luckily managed to fall down towards the middle of the truck and not close to the tyres - and the weight of the truck was on my left shoulder. This is what resulted in the broken collar bone of the left shoulder - that is still broken and is taking frustratingly long to heal (Now, do you get the frustrated bit that I spoke of at the beginning?). It was certainly painful and on top of that, the guys who had called emergency services had denied my request to lift the truck using the jack.

There are two important things that I learnt during this experience. First one is that, your brain is your best buddy. For example, when I was trapped under and my request for using the jack was turned down - mine quickly went unconcious, saving me the pain. I woke up when I was being rescued by the emergency services. Not only this, when I was concious and under the truck, I had some really amusing thoughts like "Wait, guess this is a bad dream...I don't remember waking up in the morning after all". I remember being amused by this one when I was under the truck. Seriously!!

Second one is that its a lot about luck or lack of it. I was of course pretty lucky to survive this one so well. But that's not the only reason why I believe in my luck or lack of it after this accident. When I was brought to the hospital, the nurse that was treating me in the trauma center was so so so so hot and I was lying in bed in front of her..............................................waiting for her to give me pain killer injections!!! What the fuck!!!!! Not only this - after my surgery, when I was still under anesthesia in the recovery room - I woke up once or twice to see these two really hot nurses dancing...to Buttons by Pussy Cat Dolls one of the times!!!! Not only this - that was the last time a hot nurse was attending to me. After I was concious and recovering, 2 out of my 4 nurses over 5 days were the ones that I could find in any and every hospital here!!! No - its not really about the hot nurses or the lack of them - its about luck...a lot about luck!!!!!

* this is the name of my dear i-pod.

3rd January 2010...

…was the day that I was supposed to fly back to London after about a week in Delhi…and what a week it had been! I’ll certainly spare you all any details about it and would just say that if nothing else, I was a bit relieved to head back to London and trust me I never imagined that there would come such a day when I would say this but yes I was indeed relieved, for the lack of a better word to describe what I was feeling.

I was here standing in the line for the security check and I had already witnessed events in the airport which I am sure would have deserved a post on this space by themselves, when the guy standing right ahead of me turned back and said “Namaaste” with a delightful smile and an accent. I had never noticed him since he looked normal…looked Indian...and thus blended into the environment for me to not notice him at all and that’s why I guess I reacted the way I did..with surprise and said “Oh! Ha ha…I didn’t expect this because you look Indian!! Where are you from?” “Ha ha..that’s ok…I feel quite Indian because I follow God and come to India often following him…I go wherever he takes me and brings me here often and then I go back to Italy with him...happy...”. Of course I do not remember most of it verbatim but I am sure you get the drift of what he said. And there I was, having a discussion about spirituality (I, of all people!!!) with this Italian guy who was very warm and always smiling and speaking like he was singing and was of course ridiculing the Americans and the Brits at every opportunity in the conversation. I had of course told him at the start that its odd for me to have a conversation about god since I am an atheist, a borderline agnostic at best but that is where the conversation actually started and I was enjoying what we were discussing till the time we were interrupted by a really rude and unfortunate family. Unfortunate because of the character the father, the head of their family was to show!

Given that it was January and foggy, the airport was a mess with flight delays and long queues, and with the disciplined set of people that we are, there was chaos all over. Some people see an opportunity in times of chaos, to save a little time for themselves while screwing public peace for sure. So did this family when they decided to start a parallel line slightly ahead of us. Since we were in an engaging conversation, we didn’t notice it for a while till the time the guy’s bag hit the Italian fellow. We of course protested and asked them to join the queue, but of course this Indian looking guy did what he thought would be easier and more comfortable…he started shouting at us…at the Italian guy mainly since he was the one who had politely asked them to get in line, with a smile of course. “Of course he has a British passport..they still own the world” (this last phrase may be a stretch of my imagination but he meant something like that :-) ). “I rest my case sir!” is how I responded and got back to our little chat about different things, some of the topics of which certainly were a bit clichéd for any cross cultural conversation involving an Indian..the rural urban divide, the smiling villagers, why most people in the cities don’t smile…you know the usual!

Anyhow, we had both gone to our respective gates by now and my mind went back to what was still occupying it before this encounter. This one is in a queue again…I wonder why do some of the more interesting incidents in our country happen in queues..maybe lacking a sense of queuing is not all that bad! I, of course, had to pass through emigration counters before I could get to the security check-in area and I was in the queue to get to the counter. There were quite a few laborers in my queue and the 3 guys behind me were already freaking me out with their enthusiasm since in their hurry to get to the counter they had forgotten that I was ahead of them. The guy behind me was taking 3 steps forward for every 1 step that I took whenever the line moved and soon he was on my butt, literally! He was of course invading my personal space, which made me very uncomfortable and was planning to ask him to back off a bit. But then I noticed that the emigration guy at the other counter was asking the laborers in the front of his queue was shooing them and asking them to join our queue at the end. He apparently wanted to leave for a break and was asking, actually rudely instructing, them to go at the back. This set of 7-8 laborers that I am talking about were followed by a bunch of 4 Swedes who asked the emigration guy if there was a problem. What followed totally shook me and annoyed me and frankly my eyes were red in anger. The emigration guy had responded by saying that there is no problem…asked them to come to him…quickly stamped their passports and let them go while he had shooed away 7 Indian laborers to the back of the next queue half a minute back!!! I could hardly believe what I was seeing, with my mind going crazy with anger with this outrageous behavior of racism, if not worse, against our own people by our own people in our own country!!!! Of course, I couldn’t stay quiet and didn’t want to start shouting right there so as to not delay my line which had grown bigger by now with the new additions to it. I was next to get to my counter and was hoping the guy at the other counter could stay for 1 more minute so that I could confront him as soon as my passport gets stamped. Luck was obviously not on my side and the guy left before I could reach my counter. On getting to the counter, I asked my emigration officer if he had noticed what had happened and he promptly started to defend his colleague. This reaction from him totally annoyed me and I don’t know why but I had almost started shouting at him when I demanded he let me know who the supervisor was. I spoke to the supervisor then, after regaining my calm and clarifying that I do not intend to start a revolution based on this this incident and that I only wanted to register my disappointment at what had happened...that I was hurt to see this happening in my own country. The guy had a fair argument in saying that he wanted a break and they are extra careful with the paperwork of laborers while they could just stamp out the firangs. So, in order to get to the break quickly, his guy had preferred the white skinned dudes over his countrymen for the right reasons. Though I thought the argument was reasonably fair prima facie, I was still disappointed by the way they had been treated and was hardly any less angry. I, for the sake of my country, hope that he was saying the truth. I really do, even though I quite frankly am not the patriotic or the passionate about country kinds.

Finally, I was on the plane and had taken a power nap while the plane still hadn’t started moving. I was quite relieved to see a new movie list on the entertainment system. And this is where the third “experience” worth a mention for this space, happened. I watched “The Bridges of Madison County” on the flight. I was so totally blown away by it. Since it is a romantic movie, the best one I have ever seen, and since I have an image to take care of, I wouldn’t elaborate on why I liked it so much or what about it did I love so much. And since I seriously do have an image to take care of, I would even avoid confessing that it was so powerful that it almost brought tears to my eyes…almost!!! Go watch it if you haven’t…

Wondering if I am done yet? No! Certainly not…

Off the flight and I needed a taxi to get back to my serviced apartment (you’ll soon find out why I decided to mention the unnecessary detail of it being a ‘serviced’ apartment). I called for one and when the driver called me once he reached the airport, this is what he said to identify himself “I am a black guy in a brown suit outside…”. On hearing “I am a black guy”, I had a funny feeling that the day wasn’t over as yet and there is more to come. If you are wondering if only 2 incidents had made me feel that it was enough for the day, I have of course skipped a couple of others not so abnormal incidents for the sake of holding your attention and I hope I have been successful. Like I should have sensed this day was going to be different, in the morning when while I was leaving for the airport my mom didn’t cry!!! Can you believe it? MY MOM DIDN’T CRY WHEN I WAS LEAVING FOR THE AIRPORT TO GO STAY IN ANOTHER CITY WHEN SHE WOULDN’T SEE ME FOR FOUR WEEKS!!!!! I could hardly believe it myself but was still happy about it, very happy. If only I had recognized the omens and sensed that this was going to be a different day…a day that was worth a blog post on my blog :-)

Not that there was anything outrageous about what happened on the taxi ride back to my apartment but the taxi guy happened to be from Uganda and I had another very engaging conversation with a random stranger. I find this significant since I rarely connect with different people this well and give them enough time and attention to have a good conversation about anything. And here was my second really engaging one for the day...Here is a sample of what I remember of this discussion that I had enjoyed so much to actually write about it:

1) He wanted to go back to Uganda soon since he was sure that even though he could do well for himself in London, he could never be really really rich here. For that he would go back to Uganda soon. I realized that maybe it’s not education, leave alone the degrees, which could take you far. It’s the dreams babay…it’s the dreams that you dream. Don’t know why this thought hit me as soon as he started talking about why he wanted to go back to Uganda and what he wanted to do there. So dreaming is all I shall do from now on J…kidding…

2) He thought there wasn't not much racism in London and its improving with time anyhow. That these are very nice people as long as they feel that you are not doing better than them. When they do, they are not that nice :-) This part of the discussion was of course in a certain context and not just because I was celebrating “World Anti-Racism Day” that day!

3) He didn’t remember the last time he picked up someone from Pakistan from the airport, someone new. He said there were of course locals of Pakistani origin but it wasn’t as common to see new people from Pakistan arriving for business or work. The kind of consequences, for the people and the economy, that a social shakeup in that country has had are not too obvious after all. And for me as well, since I really want to visit Pakistan once in my lifetime…sooner rather than later hopefully...

When I reached home and switched on the lights, I thought I had finally reached the end of my day by now…almost there..when I found a letter lying on the table of the living room which said something like this:

“Dear Guest…we expect you to maintain a certain basic level of cleanliness in the hourse…blah blah…please make sure blah blah otherwise we would have to charge you extra”!!!!!

A near perfect ending to a near perfect day!!

-j