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