Observations in the waiting hall

Yet another day at the airport. My ears plugged with Seinheisers and my eyes staring into the HTC. In front of me is the gate to my flight. The waiting area is in the middle of the duty free shopping area. Most of these shops are usually empty with the sales folks close to falling asleep out of boredom. For whatever reason, this airport is busy as a bee. Every shop filled with customers. Every billing counter with a queue.

As I continue to wonder, I randomly look around to take a glance at my fellow travelers; everybody drowned into their gadgets. Paati and Tata looking into their iPad and scrolling through pictures of thanksgiving feast their kids had back in the US. The uncle with a football sized paunch looking into his over-sized Samsung phone. The suited gentleman with salt n pepper hair busily typing into his Blackberry. The dude with bright yellow t-shirt and red shoes mildly head banging with his large white iball headphones. To be fair, I am sure there is somebody else noticing me tap away to glory on my phone. To sum it all up - Typical crowd :)

The gate is now filled with indigo employees preparing for boarding. A group of women wearing blue uniforms, a hat and a hard-to-miss blue neck accessory walk-in. All of them were 3" taller than their original height, thanks to their blue heels :). Each of them masked in fat layers of foundation and kajal. And to complete the look, their hair tied up and soaked in hair spray. Don't get me wrong here, I appreciate the effort which went into looking neat and well groomed. I just don't seem to understand the logic behind getting all dressed up for a job which requires a lot of running around. Why couldn't they just show up in a Kurta and leggings or probably a T-shirt and cotton pants matched with crocs? Am sure one can look pretty good in that attire and can do the job in much more comfort. Me as a passenger would not mind it either.

I snap out of that train of thought when the PA indicated that my flight was ready to board. I pick up my stuff and proceed towards the gate. In my head, I still haven't rationalized the reason behind the need to look like you were going to catwalk. However, as with any other random thought, I leave it unresolved and go back to my play list.

All in all - 2 hours of waiting time well spent ;)

Name Calling

There I was at the Seattle Tacoma international airport waiting at the gate for my ride to come and take me home. I settled down in one of the comfy spots and started looking around me. Out of 7 rows of chairs filled with passengers, I spotted way too many Desis and probably 5 Firangs. Thinking about it, The Desis are the Firangs in this country(US) and the so-called Firangs are Desis here. Applying that logic, that place was actually filled with way too many Firangs ;) Never mind.

Ahem! Moving on with my story - I was sitting there making my last few 'Good bye' calls to my friends and suddenly the Emirates announcement starts which went (something like this) - "Hello Emirates blah blah paging Naraaayaanaa, Ramaaaswaaaram".. and a lot more other people. She just killed all the Indian names in the best way possible! I was on the phone with my jiju and both of us just couldn't stop laughing! What started next was a situation story which I had to tell and show off :P So here it goes...

This was my first time ever to the States. I was travelling to NJ via Air France. We were just landing at Paris and my connecting flight to NJ was an hour away. The air hostess on the flight started to announce all the names who had to take the next flight as they had a separate bus arranged to take us to the flight directly. If you don’t know, my full name is SAKINA KHUZEMA ADEEB. Though my first and last names are pretty straight forward, the middle name is complicated.

The air hostess announced a series of random names and amidst those I heard "Kujima Aaadib".  "Damn! it sounds so familiar" I thought. She probably repeated it 5 times before I realized it was me!!  I hastily walked towards her and said "I think that is Khuzema?".  Her face literally glowed in happiness. She smiled at me and said "Finally! Somebody came!". I thought, "Yeah right, if you screw up names nobody will show up". Actually, cant blame her. She was French and English was not even her second language. Her calling out a list of Indian names is like me riding a CBR! Not gonna happen without disastrous results.

I was standing next to her watching her break into a sweat and  read out names in a way I have never ever heard. I took the list from her hand and saw names like "Venkataraman", "Srinivasan", "Ananthamurthy".  I felt sorry for her and offered to help. Without any hesitation she handed over the Mic to me and there I was calling out names as if I knew these guys from childhood. All of them started coming in front and boarded the bus waiting for us. The air hostess was so relieved that she gave me a hug and said "Thank you!!!" (in her French accent of course).  Proud is what I felt!

Ok story vover - now get back to whatever you were doing :P

Flashback!

Merry Christmas peepals! 

6 more days for 2013 and I am still wondering what to do for the New year's. I guess I will eventually land up in some random place either dancing or eating or just wandering!  Right now, I sit here in front of the laptop (on a holiday), listening to a song which annoys my hubby the most, trying to write a plan for a project starting in 2013 and in the midst of all that, trying to write this ;)

BTW this is my 3rd attempt at a blog post this week. I don’t know why (may be I know why) I have just not been able to either turn my thoughts into words, or found time to write, or found the words and the time, but just didn't get enough "meat" to put into a post. Lets just hope I manage to finish this one successfully ;)

For all the "end-of-the-world" hype this year had, we seem to have passed by the "Doomsday" smoother than anticipated. Wonder if the whole 2012 prediction was just another way of getting a new topic to frighten people  or make money! Anyways, for me, I believe this year went really well! "How do you say that?" You may ask. Let me try to answer that as convincingly as I can :)

January - Started the year in a rather boring way (sitting at home). However, managed to reach my 100th blog post on the Newyears'. So proud of me on that one ;). Made my maiden visit to Kolkata and attended Amit n Ruchika's wedding. Enjoyed every moment of their hospitality and made some real witty friends :-))

February - Vishnu and I got famous on our 3rd anniversary :) Our story was featured in Femina February edition.  Haven't read it? See here. We celebrated the "D" day at Masinagudi along with love birds Hussain and Rash. We also signed papers for our new House which is currently under construction :)

March and April: Well, nothing much, first wedding in the team. Padma got into wedlock :) and I managed to save myself from getting fooled :P

May: By far the best-est month of the year :) My first trip to Seattle, loads of re-union, some major bonding with sister. Sky dived from 12,500 feet above sea level (I have a Certificate to prove that ;) ..)  Road trip to 3 states in 2 days - From LA to Grand Canyon to Vegas!  :) Also did a cycle gap visit to Dubai (you know why ;) )

June: Back home and continued normal life ;) Akka and kids visited us :) Urvi found a new baby sitter to cling and climb on :) and Rashi found a new partner in crime ;) In-laws started for their 2.5 months vacation to US.

Team outings, dinners, lunches, treats at its best :) Stephen's first visit to Chennai.

July:  Met Rosy and Mallika after ages! Super surprise planned by both of them :) Spent some very "embracing" moments with Kishen, Ambika and Mariya ;)

August: Best friend Suni got married to her forever friend Kiruba :) Back at work, launched India Kindle Store on Amazon.com

September: Trip to Bangalore, met Phaphda. Took complete pleasure of bugging Prathi :) Streaked my hair Red :) and and and ….Celebrated my Birthday with awesome surprises, loving wishes and cake cutting! Completed 4 years at Amazon :D

October: One day trek to Tada, fun time with team and hubby. Mr. Awesome moved to Bangalore (sad and happy for him). Gangnam style outing at Raddison Blu (Mahabs). Found new girls gumbal at work to jabber with :) We also bid farewell to Zenab, she left Chennai to pursue her PhD, may God bless you and the phD ;)

November: First road trip as a couple from Chennai to Kodai. Adventure time at Elephant Valley on the Tree house ;) A good eco-friendly birthday for hubby;)

December: Numerous project launches at work (team is super proud of their work). In the midst of all that attended half a dozen weddings, practically every close friend of mine got married this month. Laughter filled trip to Dharmapuri and Hoganakkel.

So, "Bhaisaab aap convince ho gaye ya mein aur bolu??" - Hope you had an awesome 2012 too. Looking forward to New year party (wherever that is) and 2013 :)

Six!

I have always loved travelling, I have never hesitated to pack my bags and just go out there and discover the world. Be it a leisure trip, or a trip for a friend's wedding, or a small weekend getaway; I am the first to volunteer and probably the one organizing too :) After I got married, Vishnu and I have tried to make a list of places we want to visit and then pick up a place whenever we are ready for a Holiday :) That's exactly how we landed up in Andaman’s earlier this year :). I do have a very very long list of places I want to go to, but today, 6 days to 2012, I wish to list the 6 places I absolutely want to go/visit :) (Actually my hubby is making the same list and trust me, the places are different ;) hehe)

1. Tajmahal in Agra, India – As one of the  travel guides mentioned "There is nothing as beautiful as viewing the Taj by moonlight" - that's exactly what I want to do. Go to Agra during a full moon night, get special entrance tickets, sit at the Taj and enjoy the silver shine around the building! Absolute beauty!

2. The Pink City - Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan! Place filled with Mahals and palaces. One of the finest planned cities and a city of royal ancestors. I want to go for a weeklong tour to just Jaipur and walk into every palace built there, eat the bajre ki roti at a local restaurant and get myself dressed up in a Rajasthan costume :)

3. Kerala Backwater tour in a huge houseboat :) - This place has a movie connection, remember the Jiya Jale Song from Dil Se? I want to do a 3 day long trip from Cochin to Kumbarakom and simply enjoy the lush green view around me.

4. Venice, Italy - The first time I came to know of this place is when I saw one of the most romantic songs from The Great Gambler,  Do lafzon ki hain Dil ki kahani . I surely want to do a romantic boat ride in the city  of Water :)

5. The Alps, Switzerland - I have seen this place only in Karan Johar movies. I want to play with the snow, do lots of skiing, and go on the cable car and roller coaster rides on the snow!

6. The Grand Canyon, Arizona US - What can I say, when my dad told me about his experience here, I quickly made a note that I have to make a visit there. When I saw the move 127 hours, I was convinced that I wanted to visit this place before I die :) I believe that the sunrise/sunset view is simply spectacular.

These are not the only places I ever want to go to. I do have another list of short trips I want to make, but for now, these are the 6 most wanted places I ever want to go to :)

My first IA Experience!

It was again one of those painful trips I had to take in order to satisfy the team needs and recruit more people into the forest! The office admin could not arrange for decent flights and we landed up with "Air India". I have personally never travelled in an Air India flight, I have of course heard a lot of people literally swearing on the service they provide but have never taken them seriously. I always thought, what can really go wrong in an airline? Even if it is government owned? It still needs customers and has to work for the customers in order to be in business right?? WRONG!
They don't give a damn, they have no "customer" obsession nor do they care about who fly with them and who don’t - they always get left over crowd and they are happy with that. We reached the airport 1.5 hours ahead of departure and stood in a long never-ending queue to check-in. We as a group gave 9 tickets to the lady at the counter. She kept staring at the screen for more than 10 mins. No response. She looked around went to the next door aunty, no expression on her face, when we asked what was going on. No response. She took all our tickets and walked off, don’t know where. After 10 mins she appeared and we still didn’t know what was going on and were losing patience. We had to board the flight by 4:00 and until 3:45 there was no sign of boarding passes! The lady then walks to another uncle at the counter and he tried to print the boarding pass. We were lucky to have gotten 1 out of 9 boarding pass and were relieved that we are finally checking-in. Guess what!? The printer got stuck!! We were moving from one counter to the other until uncle found a working printer. After he found, he issued boarding passes for everybody else in the queue except us!
This was getting highly irritating and we started bugging uncle and all he did was Nod and say "1 min" - he did that at least 10 times...We finally followed the lady to the back office and she said, 1 min. it was 4:10 (15 mins before take-off) and we were still standing there waiting to check in. She finally came out and handed over the tickets to the same lost uncle and disappeared. Uncle took print outs of our boarding passes at 4:20 and we rushed for security check! While we were standing in the queue the IA lady announced "This is the last call for all the passengers boarding the Bangalore flight on Indian Airlines". We broke the line and ran to the gates, the lady was pissed off and didn’t even smile (like we care, do hell with your smile).
We reached the flight to find out that my seat was already allocated to somebody else and the lady was kind enough to ask me to sit in Business class (somebody was finally kind I thought!). I was finally happy that we got compensated for the wait and got business class seats. I guess I got too carried away, the air hostess were no better. One lady - Who looked half pregnant, another one who looked deprived of food and the other who looked as if she hated being there! Totally 3 ladies to serve us "first class" and make us feel that we are the bad boys stealing away their life from them! There was no Smile on their face, no please in their vocabulary - you would simply wish they didn’t exist.
So much for a 45 mins flight to Bangalore - I would have rather taken the train!