An eventful journey

On the auspicious day of 27th July, amid heavy downpour, I was to bid India good bye for a long time. Uncle Sam was waiting for me with his arms wide open. I was all set to start my excursion. Nevertheless, Little did I know, there was so much in store for me on that simple looking, though long, 24 hour journey.
To save every penny that I could, I tried to pack everything I could think of. It became 52 kgs which was way more than what is usually allowed (23 X 2). I called Air India customer care to confirm the baggage allowance. As if the lady luck was favoring me, I was told I could take a third bag for free with me (Education rocks you bachelors and masters). The repacking made it a total of 69 kgs in 3 bags (this additional 17 kgs was contributed by food items). That pretty much tells you that I had everything to sustain for a year in case I can't visit Walmart in Atlanta. The flight was scheduled at 700hours IST and it took off at 0830 ST ;). That was impressive enough.
My co passenger was a generous person in his mid '60s. I call him generous because he gave a can of Heineken beer to the floor may be by mistake while opening it. After it was spilled, he asked the pillow to share the beer as the floor was not taking all of it. From there, the mighty pillow rested under my seat sucking the beer to the last drop. The Uncle loved Coke (coca cola you perverts), I can tell this because he opened the can adroitly and did not let even a single drop to mix with beer. Lucky pillow hunnn.
We had a technical (scheduled) stop in Germany. We reached Frankfurt but I can't recall what time it was. After some dilly dallying we continued and reached Chicago at 1630 hours local time. Here starts the interesting part. One officer (cop) accosted me before I could join any queue at Immigration department and sternly advised me few things. It was my first interaction with someone who had an American accent, honestly speaking I did not get most part of what he wanted to convey. However, I followed the crowd and joined a never ending queue. Few familiar faces right from my flight left this queue surprisingly and became a part of O'hare International airport...God knows why. Did I tell you I had to catch a flight to Atlanta scheduled at 1900 hours? I bet if I stayed in the queue I could not make it. I started looking here and there and when my turn came I was informed that that was the queue for American residents and Green Card holders. There was hardly 2 hours and I lost all little hope of getting into next connecting flight. I cursed my agent who said Immigration will take 30 minutes at the max. However, I managed to call another cop and requested him to give me priority over others as I had a flight to catch. Here is how it went:
Me (with a fake accent): Excuse me officer, I have got a flight to catch at 1900 hours. Could you help me make my Immigration process faster?
Cop: Everyone has got a flight to catch Sir. Please go back, stand there quietly and wait for your turn.
huh..nothing could be done. But I was happy that he understood what I said. Well, I got my passport stamped at 1830 hours. I asked the immigration officer if I would be able to make it to the next flight. He said "I doubt you can, make it fast!"
I ran to collect my bags and managed to get them in 10 minutes. I rushed towards American Airlines baggage check-in, only to found that I was late. I had already missed the flight.
What to do? Can I blame someone else for it? My agent? Naah..he won't return a single rupee back..he is an indian. Hey wait a minute..the Air India flight was delayed by half an hour. It is there fault. Eurekaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
I went to their desk, Only to find out that it was closed. I knew I was screwed. I had no phone and no coins to make a call. However, I did have a toll free number of a good friend of mine named Mitul (he is known as Meet now) and I called him up. He said anyhow get any Air India employee and talk to him as if you are talking to Vodafone customer care. They will sort it out. I asked a person, who was loading luggage for American Airlines, where can I get any Air India employee. He suggested me to check it in a staff room and I caught a lady there. I scared the shit out of her and told her that I am going through this ordeal only because the flight was delayed. She got afraid of my dyeing right there and requested me to let her check if she could do anything. She came back after few minutes with a bad news (to her) that there was no flight to Atlanta that day. She said what she could do now is to put me in a hotel and book the next available flight; which was on next morning. Believe you me I was treated like a valued customer (not like a Vodafone prepaid customer) and she was thoroughly polite during entire process. These yanks charge like anything but then they give you the perfect service. As I had no other option I agreed on that. Oh boy I dint know it was going to be a five star hotel. For the first time in my life I spent a night in a five start hotel. They even paid for my dinner and breakfast. I called my parents from the hotel (Thanks to Meet for his unending support.) and told them about me staying in a five start hotel. Everything was again getting better. I had a coffee there, had a good bath (as I had to use toilet papers there) and slept on the finest bed in the world though alone.
Next morning I reached Atlanta safely, waited on the airport for 3 hours and then a beautiful Indian girl named Geetali came to pick me up. She is the president of Indian Student Association here, and she walks as if she knows what she is. She helped me get to a place reserved for me as temporary accommodation. Thank you Geetali. That is all how I reached on this land. The week after that was filled with amazing experiences. The very first advise I got about Atlanta was this:
यह अलग मिजाज़ का शहर है जरा फासलों से मिला करो......
On that note I close this post here. Will keep you updated with all hot and happening here.

Random Conversation (aka Bak)

The title Courtesy: Abhijith, the person who spells my name in a beautiful manner, and utters with even more beauty - DINSY.
Today my PM and my PL both are on leave, thus the only task left to be done is diverting from the normal course of pretending that I work. I bugged everyone, since morning, with forwarded msgs, and they responded too while pretending that they work. One of them (forwards) was a great work of Photoshop, and the consequences gave birth to this blog. I teased him (abhi: the sender) with a few caustic remarks and then he avenged my audacity. I will write the whole episode verbatim without philandering with it, in an attempt to make it better.

There are always few people with whom you can’t adjust, whom you can’t bear around you and who suffice to prove that even almighty GOD makes mistakes. Such a girl is honored with the name X here, not because I am a GOD fearing person, but becuase I am afraid she can sue me. The girl is one from my neighborhood in Chennai, no false assumptions plz.

Here we go:
Dinsy: GR8 work of Adobe photoshop! If you want a pic with your dream gal, send me one of yours and X's snap. I will do the honor. LOL!

Abhi: G**** mein d****…reeeee…teri g**** mein d**** re!! Na Sone ka *****, na X ki dildo teri g**** mein d**** re.

Dinsy: hmm, abusive words, will forward it to X, stating that you pity her for using a dildo.

Abhi: She hates you so much, the whistle blower is gonna go against u. Hehehehe!

Dinsy: No work of abnegation be as profound as my being murdered, for your full of pleasure, amorous, affair with her.

Abhi: Forsooth, a moment of my pleasure be well worth a lifetime of thy contrition, but surely you are blaspheming, when you judge your murder a profound abnegation!

Dinsy: O venerable one and vulnerable one! I have done penance and will do it all cost, clamoring for action, even if the head of mine resides at one's feet. Only thing I fear is that this pauperism of yours, for pleasure, will lead you to, and only to, penitence; Height of pain is that, then, you won't even have me to shoulder your disgraceful body. You will moan, You will cry, You will groan, You will find how unspeakable your agony is; During this ordeal you will die every moment to ameliorate it but it will rarely if at all help. One bard wrote few lines for perverts of your heights:
Kisi Aankh ko sadaa do, kisi julf ko pukaro
Badi dhoop pad rahi hai, koi saaybaan nahi hai!!
Huhh!! Where did you get your vocab from man! Couldn't find all words on Google.

Abhi: Heh heh…let me reply to your mail with a few lines, another bard wrote. Only these are much simpler,
Sticks and stones might break my bones, but mere words can never touch them.
As for not finding them in Google, I don’t think Sergei Brine read as much as I did. ;)

Disny: Gud one! better was the peroration than the lines by some jobless bard. You should look forward to serious writing. I am serious.

What happened after this only Google will result you some day. Happy Googling.

Tamil terriyaadhu

Musafir huun yaaro, Na ghar hai, Na thikaanaa...it seems this song has some relevance to me. I was born in Haryana a few years (read:decades) back. When I was learning how to walk, we moved to a different town. Once I developed the skills to walk and run my family shifted to a new city, I happily joined them. I started my schooling (Kinder Garten) from "Bal Bhavan", a very well known place in a district (and city) called "Jind" in Haryana. I was undoubtedly a bright student but after I completed my 2nd standard, the life pushed us all the way to Assam. After reviewing my past record, Don Bosco, a well known school in Dhemaji (Assam), opened its door to me. I continued there for two years and again came back to Haryana. After 8 years, once more there was a call, this time from Gujarat and hence we moved there. From Gujarat, I moved to Madhya Pradesh only to learn the most important (read:toughest) lessons of life. Next milestone in this journey was Dhirubhai Ambani Inst., GandhiNagar, which is one of my favorite stops till date (28th October, 2007). Here ends the career of Dinesh Agarwal, as a student but not as a vagrant. I got a job myself and moved to Bangalore (Bengluru nowadays). I underwent a learning session for just two three months there (refer the blog titled "Kannada Gotti-La"). And now I am in Chennai, Tamilnadu. I've Started compromising on every thing in life starting from food, shelter and of course clothing. Chennai is a metropolitan city, I bet, only in records. Here you will find bus stops without a single arrangement to sit, humanity at its extreme i.e. people who are either extremely good or extremely bad, tamil as the only language known by most of the public, ATMs with either only Rs.500 currency notes or with only Rs100 currency notes (with a handwritten note on the machine that you can't withdraw more than 40 notes), someone buying a ticket for you in buses (through a queue formed by human beings, that starts with the person closest to conductor) and nonetheless beautiful girls wearing skin tight face masks of black colour (I am not ready to buy the argument that it is their skin colour, God can't be that partial). For any of the local problems your quick fix is "Tamil terriyaadhu". This is a magical chant (better than ROLLUS ENCOMPUS) which helps you conquer the enemy at the gate. Yesterday I wanted to explore the bus rides here, I got into a bus, offered a 10 Rupee currency note to a conductor only to get it back with some scoldings, which meant the money was less for such a long journey, But even my Rs50 note was also insulted. I, then, sat quietly as I wasn't bothered, if he doesn't offer me a ticket. But then, to my surprise, an old lady from nowhere, gave me three coins of Rs1 each and murmured her own chant. I was still unaffected by her magic, but not was this, the case, with Mr. conductor, he obeyed her and gave me a ticket against those coins. As they say, All well that ends well, or in hindi "Jaan bachi so laakhon paaye, laut ke buddhu ghar ko aaye". Anyways leave it, you said something? "Sorry Saar! Tamil Terriyaadhu". ;)

Kannada Gotti-La

Times are rare when your life takes a turn, one is for sure when you end your studies and join the corporate world. Case was same with me too, as I joined Mindtree Consulting in the first week of july and shifted to Bangalore(Bengluru??) finally. Bangalore to me was not a nice place at first, as I had to move a couple of kilometers to find whatever I was looking for. However, now I am as accustomed to it as an indigenous. My experiences till now suggest me that the life saviour sentence (or may be phrase) here is "Kannada Gotti-La". I don't know if it is written the same way I wrote it, but I am correct as far as the pronunciation is concerned. This phrase means "I lack the knowledge to understand what you just articulated in Kannada, which apparently means I am a dumbass". Kannada is the language of Karnataka for those who are bigger dumbasses and don't even know that much. When you shift your state, there are three core concerns "Roti kapada aur makaan" i.e. food, clothing and shelter. Fortunately, I brought enough of clothes with me from my place but to my dismay they have better showrooms here. The food here doesn't seem to be a great trouble as every nook and corner in the city has a restaurant with the word "Sagar" prefixed or postfixed to its name, though I found one exception in form of a restaurant with the name "Shastri Paradise". The only big trouble here for me is the third core issue which is shelter. I have seen so many houses till now that I can see a definite bright future for me as a real estate agent. It is either too expensive for me or too cheap to live in. Finally I settled in a Paying Guest Accommodation for boys for two months. Though I have to share it with a friend of mine, I like it as he is a nice fellow. We discuss things like etiquettes in france and US of A, We do discuss things which matter a lot in a relationship between boys and girls. We travel together and try to occupy a seat with a capacity to accommodate three people with the hope that some beautiful lady can occupy the third seat which never happens, but as they say "Umeed pe duniya kayam hai" we continue. The weather here is great and you need a blanket while sleeping and hot water to shower. I will start hunting for room or flat after a month once again and I wish I would get a good house or another blog entry.