Flying in a plane doesn’t give you a feeling different than sitting in your living room (unless of course you hit an air turbulence) until you take a look at the specs: Altitude 36000 feet, ground speed 0.87 mach (1065 Kmph in SI) and ambient temperature of -65 deg C, You are in hostile territory!
Air travel this time around was fun , cause it wasn’t my first time, abnormal landings with a twin thud of the wheels dint made me nervous, but most important of all I was heading home rather than away from it. The flight atmosphere in the final stretch was jovial for a change and Deltas’ “please india” strategy was in taste with all of us. The Indian crew, Indian food and movies had already given a hint of things to come. The pilots attempt to speak Hindi even though he was a Gujju, was very affable, he did from time to time reminded of his linguistic descent by his naive attempts to ask for excuses for his atypical hindi: “Deviyo aur sajjano, apnee kurse kee peeth seedhe karle aur seat belts baand le, Jahaaj utarne ke liye taiyaar hain”, people applauded the landing and the final announcement “Bharat ke New York, Mumbai shahar me aapka swaagat hain” was very cool- Love you Delta for that , It was a treat flying on the NY- Mumbai flight!
However the return journey was equally terrible and hated Delta for all the delays and missed baggages and was terrified by the fact that we had narrowly missed a mid air collision on the Atlanta- Houston flight !!!!!!!
Friday, January 19, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Incredible India!
Incredible India!
22 runs to win, Dhoni batting on 28 of 47 balls – Commentator “Dhoni has played an inning such out of character in the interest of the team ….” Next ball dhoni plays a maverick slog such “in-character” and get bowled stunning and silencing the crowd – camera rolls on to the spectators showing despaired fans – Commentator “The crowd goes silent as another wicket…..” this is when the the section of fans on your screen start celebrating – waving at the cameras as they see themselves on the large screen, such is India – Incredible.
My first impression during my first few days of India visit was – changed, the country has changed drastically, but then a closer look, and the changes seemed only superficial, cosmetic and purporting to the microcosm of urban and corporate India. We have graduated from one lane to 6 lane roads but we still drive on the lane separators, we have glass dressed buildings but we still spit on no spitting boards, people still smoke in public places with no consideration for others, large corporate have tall aristocratic buildings with lawns and pools with no consideration for the neighborhoods and roads around the area- but are the first to complain about the worsening traffic and power situation. This particular grievance is addressed to IT companies who are so obsessed with comforting their employees - devise fancy ways of compensating them so that they can evade income tax and then expect government to take care of various issues. Adopt a mile of highway culture; industry government co-operation is nowhere to be seen.
One of the surprising developments was my reluctance to buy multinational products in India. When I went around comparing the prices of products like Pepsi , coke, McDonalds, Reebok in India there is no major difference in the prices in India and US in fact some are costlier in India. Now if you compare how much an average Indian and an American earns, buying these in India is like some outrageously prodigal expenditure. However equally baffling is how we don’t mind spending on this stuff.
So what more, On the tube the plethora of news channel is mind boggling and the content even more so, everyone wants to feed in live happening of violence – gory picture showing the agony and atrocities, the crime rate in urban India and the problem compounded by non existent law and order. A pathetic and hilarious happening today, Samajwadi party workers attacking American tourists over the execution of Saddam hussain, now who were the American tourists? Indians like me visiting the country, so Indians attacking Indians over Saddam execution. Saddam Hussain Jindabaad slogans complimentary with the stone pelting …….
So is everything so bad out here ? No…….there are many pleasant things around …. The economic boom is so inspiring, the country is marching towards prosperity and the Indian girls seemed more beautiful than ever before ;)
22 runs to win, Dhoni batting on 28 of 47 balls – Commentator “Dhoni has played an inning such out of character in the interest of the team ….” Next ball dhoni plays a maverick slog such “in-character” and get bowled stunning and silencing the crowd – camera rolls on to the spectators showing despaired fans – Commentator “The crowd goes silent as another wicket…..” this is when the the section of fans on your screen start celebrating – waving at the cameras as they see themselves on the large screen, such is India – Incredible.
My first impression during my first few days of India visit was – changed, the country has changed drastically, but then a closer look, and the changes seemed only superficial, cosmetic and purporting to the microcosm of urban and corporate India. We have graduated from one lane to 6 lane roads but we still drive on the lane separators, we have glass dressed buildings but we still spit on no spitting boards, people still smoke in public places with no consideration for others, large corporate have tall aristocratic buildings with lawns and pools with no consideration for the neighborhoods and roads around the area- but are the first to complain about the worsening traffic and power situation. This particular grievance is addressed to IT companies who are so obsessed with comforting their employees - devise fancy ways of compensating them so that they can evade income tax and then expect government to take care of various issues. Adopt a mile of highway culture; industry government co-operation is nowhere to be seen.
One of the surprising developments was my reluctance to buy multinational products in India. When I went around comparing the prices of products like Pepsi , coke, McDonalds, Reebok in India there is no major difference in the prices in India and US in fact some are costlier in India. Now if you compare how much an average Indian and an American earns, buying these in India is like some outrageously prodigal expenditure. However equally baffling is how we don’t mind spending on this stuff.
So what more, On the tube the plethora of news channel is mind boggling and the content even more so, everyone wants to feed in live happening of violence – gory picture showing the agony and atrocities, the crime rate in urban India and the problem compounded by non existent law and order. A pathetic and hilarious happening today, Samajwadi party workers attacking American tourists over the execution of Saddam hussain, now who were the American tourists? Indians like me visiting the country, so Indians attacking Indians over Saddam execution. Saddam Hussain Jindabaad slogans complimentary with the stone pelting …….
So is everything so bad out here ? No…….there are many pleasant things around …. The economic boom is so inspiring, the country is marching towards prosperity and the Indian girls seemed more beautiful than ever before ;)
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