Using RTI Act

In 3 simple steps, churumuri shows how to use the RTI act effectively. The post also talks about how it was used in 4 scenarios. Very useful info!

More tools for domestic travel

Following up on my year-old post, I shall recommend three tools that are very promising.

Ixigo (http://www.ixigo.com)  has been introducing several cool features, the latest being a comparison with OTAs like cleartrip. It is an innovation in the Indian travel space and one which I very much like, though I have seen it on kayak.com Another great feature is its anywhere to anywhere connectivity, connecting smaller towns also. The interface is also slick. It is definitely the best aggregator for Indian flights.

90DI Travel (http://www.90di.com/travel/index.html)  includes trains and flights in its routes. I recently searched for a Bangalore to Kannur route and found good suggestions. On an aside, I’ve been planning to see Maniratnam-famous Kannur and Fort Bekal for a long time now and I’d be getting to see it next year. Trains are my favourite mode of travel. Hats off to the team for providing train route search on selected days in a simple and easy manner! They say the fare and seat availability is real-time.

IndiaGroove (http://indiagroove.com/trains/train_finder/search) is a good trainfinder site. If only the Indian Railways site is as intuitive and easy to use! In its beta, IndiaGroove only has trains, but is very effective, though outdated. It allows you to search for all the days in the week and also with layovers upto 24 hours. My Bangalore to Kannur/Cannanore train search gives me good results (not the latest schedules though), which I was not able to get easily from the Indian Rail site.

PS: Later I chanced upon a thread in Indiamike, which lists a few more train search sites.

I got a book

Well. Long long ago, I asked for a book from other friends and booklovers who also read this blog. Archu immediately shot off a mail, promising me one. When I got the book yesterday from Amazon, I was pleasantly thrilled.  The book is the Kite Runner and I’m already hooked up. I cannot thank her enough for this wonderful surprise, which also made my month

Backpacker friendly, huh?

I have been lucky to see two of the most friendly countries for solo travellers on a budget. When you are checking that out, there is another such list which gives you more options. Some day, I will see Argentina and I will learn Spanish. The USA in its small cities is definitely not backpacker-friendly. There are some countries where you are better off earning your money, not spending it. That explains my almost-zero travel here. But I am excited at visiting friends in the Golden state (is it also called the Sunshine state?) next month.

Every weekend long

First things first. I can’t drive though I have an Indian car driving licence. In a car-crazy America, that is sin of the first order. My second big mistake is to have left that Indian licence back home so as not to carry many identities. So, I cannot even try to use it here and test some cars These make my weekends miserably boring and long. I am stuck to my suite and there is no public transport in my suburb on weekends. Damn, it all adds up. I carry a big bias against cabs. I haven’t been to downtown yet. That explains. So, what do I do on weekends? Talk to wife, eat, sleep, watch some stupid Tamil movie I downloaded on a torrent, …

It is strange to realize that I am practically immobile without a car here. I must learn to drive properly and believe that the car is not only for the others.

My colleagues have been nice to drive around me a few weekends. I don’t feel too nice to be at another’s mercy. I am hoping to have some friends visit me here. Another option I have is to rent some bikes (not the motorbikes) and cycle along some good trails around here. Sadly, the rentals equal my daily allowance. I have less than two months to go now and I don’t know if I will be able to see around yet. Why is America so fond of cars? 

Books for friends

The next BAFAB (Buy A Friend A Book) week this year (tip: LifeHack) is from Oct 1 to Oct 7. Its simple theme is to surprise a friend with a good book for no reason. I’ve not been able to visit any library here so far. I’m actually dying to see one after hearing glowing tales from fellow book lovers. So who will surprise me this time? Archu, Jax or SK? Yes, I can send you my address here

August flight

I have some luck with the month. Never mind that I could not post once this time. This August saw me flying over Greenland to the land of opportunities. The month had been hectic in getting a visa and the tickets as I do not have any other work. Just married and on the bench is bliss, I say! So as an old fortune-teller in the beautiful Tiruchendur seashore temple prophesied 10 years back and as is written in the destinies of most IT guys, I am here in the US. Des Moines is the place. I had never heard of it before this.

The dreaded visa appointment happened at good-old-Madras and I stayed at a hotel on Mount Road inspite of having countless relatives there so that I could walk fresh to the embassy. I had another friend from my company with me. After hearing random tales about interviews (apparently once they rejected a guy who could not spell a client’s name), I was a little nervous about it. We walked into the embassy at mid-noon. Post pre-qualification, the queue moved fast and we were soon inside the lobby. Fingerprinting over and all of us were anxiously waiting for the approval/rejection. Some senior consul officer gave good advice. My friend and I stood behind each other. The visa officer asked him about the project and approved his soon. My turn came and he asks me where and why I went to Australia. My visit to Madhan’s place apparently helped here as every one knows how serious Aus is about immigration   He approves the visa in just over a minute and I am happy.

The flight is not as easy as the visa. A mid-day flight from Bangalore to Delhi when all my relatives wish me good-bye. By luck, I get a business class seat and I do not see anything fancy about the service. A long halt at Delhi (including paid entry to the new airport lobby as my flight leaves more than 5 hrs later)! Just one call to my wife that I am safely on my way. As all of us happily wait at the lobby, a posse of policemen swoop into the lobby. I am jolted out of my reverie. There is unclaimed luggage close to where I am sitting. I am shooed away, along with many others. A fully equipped bomb squad guy comes and inspects it for quite some time. As he takes out each item one by one, he swears in chaste Hindi (some thing I learnt in Indore). Most of us watch the gripping spectacle while some are actually indifferent. At the end, he just drives the luggage away and we breathe easy.

As I check in at the American counter, they repeatedly ask me if I am going to Narita after Chicago. I am scared that I might after all reach Japan instead of the USA and I tell them I have never heard of the name. Things work out after a little delay and I get a window seat. My only grievance is my toothpaste needs to be checked in separately and they tell this as I am about to board. The flight takes off on time and I catch up on a much-needed nap. The 15 hour ride is so boring. When I wake up, we are over the Atlantic and close to Greenland. Seeing all the mounds of ice over Greenland excites me. The sun’s been up ever since I woke up though the local time is close to midnight. I am reminded of Kishore’s Alaska trip to the land of the midnight sun. The food is nothing to write about. As we circle Chicago, the big lake and the never-ending city seem to invite us warmly.

Only two questions on my visa and I can stay till 25 Nov. I claim all my baggage safely (what a relief!) and pass customs quickly. I put my luggage to the next belt and move on.  I step out of the international terminal and take the train to where my connecting flight leaves from. Here I can brush my teeth. A helpful guy reminds me to take my China lock and key from the restroom. Long long ago I remember reading about how OHare is the busiest airport in the world and look about in all directions where flights are leaving or arriving. There are some coins in the airport lounge and after some hesitation on security concerns, I pick them up when no one is looking. A cent and a quarter dollar, not bad! Those are my first US coins.

The Chicago-Des Moines stretch is fast over big fields. At Des Moines, I misread the signs to get my baggage and walk back. An alarm goes off and a police lady points me to keep going straight and not turn back. My baggage has reached much before me as I wait at Chicago for about 3 hours. I wonder where to get the taxi and drift off across the Hertz and Avis rentals before I realize that I have to go outside to get one I had my Google Maps directions with me, but the friendly white cabbie tells me a little bit about Iowa, how he can afford to get a home here (he is from NY) and how there is no traffic here.  He wisely tells that “it is all over after marriage”. I smile and nod. The unity of humanity! Hehe.

At last, we reach my destination. The cabbie asks for a 4$ tip (what is normal?) on a $33 meter. He says he will leave the amount blank for me to fill for my receipt. I ask him to write it. This incident looks strange to me. I have always thought that in the developed countries, everything is by the rule-book and here I encounter a guy who offers me a chance to sidestep the system. As I meet my manager’s wife, I am safely IN the US.

My favourite card game…

… is literature, (excellent description here). My schoolmate Hem taught me after his first year at PSG and we got addicted. Ever since in all our vacation breaks, we used to gather at different homes and play this for long stretches of time. It is such a simple and skillful game. In our 10day long NSS camp at a small village on the outskirts of Chennai, we spent all our nights playing this. Some of my Guindy classmates also got addicted to this neat game. On every long trip, a pack of cards is quite handy to play this. Be it my last place of work or my last place of study, this game has got its own fans. Once when we played it on the BOM-IND train, it turned to be a boy-vs-girl messy affair. It calls for fair play though the cheats do all their tricks and make it more lively   It always reminds me of the good times I have enjoyed with it. Friends, travel and fun, this game is all that and more. When am I going to play it next? Are you game?

The after life

The burden of expectations. The pondering over relationships. Marriage is a fantastic change. Two different families cannot agree over the various ceremonies, each wanting to prove a point. The parents of the bride think, “Will our girl get a good man?” The boy’s mom feels, “Will my son succumb to the fatal attraction of the mother of all 3 letter words?” The girl wonders how she has to give up most of her comfortable environment and adapt to a totally new one. The guy only hopes that the new relations are smooth. My case is no different.

The reception, where the proud parents show off their happy kids, gets longer and longer. I can stand neither the rituals nor the crowds. The marriage is more fun. To this day, her friends mock at my standing up and tying the sacred ‘thali’. I really did expect to see more of my friends. Why? The bitter truth is that there were more friends of mine at my sister’s wedding. After the wedding, we have a whistle stop tour of my beloved Thoothukudi, not to forget the customary visit to the only Murugan temple on the beach at Tiruchendur and some crowd-free spots at the Hindu Uvari and the Christian Manappad. I introduce her to the famous parotta chalna shops and the pleasant Thoothukud beach. On returning to her place, we do more soul-searching in the temple circuit around Kumbakonam where we get special entries to most of the temples. We end it with a special pooja at Tiruvannamalai. After all this, we head to Bangalore and do our last bout of shopping for our honeymoon in the Sikkim Himalayas. We also head to Mysore for a day trip.

Those were the days when I cooked up amazing stories and enjoyed her initial gullibility. All the while I am learning about relationships. One has to be careful before saying anything. A generous dose of role-playing helps. We are bemused by the benevolent feasts at our relatives’ places. And finally we are all by ourselves.  We relax the whole day in Kolkata (It is Tagore’s birth anniversary and a holiday) before catching the Darjeeling Mail. We have ample time in Sikkim and we do just about everything there. A sample here : shake hands with a Chinese soldier on the border, go crazy on snow, frolic about high altitude lakes, see the Kanchenjunga peaks (obviously from far) and raft on the Teesta river. Now is the time to see each other naked. No pretenses.

I join work on the day we return. No work till this day! Meanwhile, we start to set up our little home. Scratch is where we begin from. Renting a home in Bangalore is now an expensive proposition. Big Bazaar is our first stop. Not all goods are cheap there. We bought 2 mats at Rs.500. The third we got from the neighbourhood at Rs.50. Deciding the high-valued purchases takes more time. My credit card and my Appa’s wallet come to our help this time. She starts her experiments with cooking. They are limited to breakfast and dinner on weekdays (Amma prepares lunch to carry) . The weekends is when special lunches are tried out. I find less time for myself and lesser time for friends. There’s always something to do at home (get the phone connection, where’s the cable guy?, why’s the newspaper so irregular?, buy a sofa). Hopefully by next month, we should have a more organized time.

I had the dirty habit of imposing myself on my well-wishers and I have given it up some time ago. Our differences are many and that makes life all the more interesting. We laugh a lot (at ourselves and the observations we make). It helps that she is very understanding and I am older. It’s still early days for our relationship. The biggest change is now it’s mostly us, us and us. We won’t have it any other way. I only wish that I do lesser role-playing in the new relationships and none at all in the ultimate one.

The before life

Plenty of warnings, plenty of hopes… The girls are happy on the new life and the boys sulk over the loss of bachelorhood. Will I be able to live with a girl? Will she put up with my whims? One heart tells me I should be able to live with any one. It’s just that I have become so detached and my expectations from any one including myself have gone too low. That’s the irony of life expressed beautifully in this quote from Jan de Hartog “Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind, you have failed.” The other heart chides me that I simply cannot live with anyone. I am so self-centred. It will always be me, me and me in my little space with my crazy thoughts, feelings and ideas.

The half-year has sped like a dream. 21 Jan. The day I saw her and she saw me. The relationship got fixed even before that and that day was just a ceremony. I could not be probably all she wanted and vice-versa. But the story starts that day. Phone calls and chats help us know each other for two months. Who cares about a job now? The life long time is prioritized. I’ve always been the ‘open’ ‘foot-in-the-mouth’ type. She loves me a lot. My indifference is getting lower. Will I be ever mad in love? The age gap probably puts me in a more mature situation. I’ll be her prince charming. She shall be my true love. The secret dates follow the long distance relationship. A couple of movies and naughty shopping make them sweeter. And then it happens. One fine day we get married…