This trip is for nostalgia's sake. Work will of course be a part of it, perhaps the most essential part, but it will also be a trip down memory lane. The bay area was home and will remain so.....even if we've set up tent elsewhere.
So... here's how it has unfolded till now. The writing will be intermittent... but I do intend to blog as and when I find some time. There's going to be nothing of merit in these writings..just some rough sketches...more like a cartoonist's doodles... done with a bold, free hand... which I may perchance read another day. Or may be, it will go completely unread, which would be equally fine!
The plane ride was excruciating. No word describes it better. 4 hours to Dubai and close to 16 hours..at a stretch... from Dubai to San Francisco.
The "Garuda Purana" is supposed to contain a graphic description of hell- the multifarious ways an inhabitant is tortured. Some are fried in oil and others impaled mercilessly...all in keeping with the magnitude of the crime committed on the earth. The list of punishments in this Purana needs an urgent addendum- this plane ride! I have definitely expiated some of my sins by simply enduring this ride... couped up in a cattle-class (economy class!) seat with no elbow room, no leg-room, no sleep, no proper vegetarian food, a screaming kid in the adjoining seat, an equally frustrated mother.... and restrooms which get increasingly unusable as the hours go by.
Just before we boarded this flight, a gentleman in a jibba (kurta) and white dhoti...walked up to me at Dubai and asked me.. out of the blue, "Telugu newspaper leda?" ("There is no Telugu newspaper, isn't it?") (which I figured out only later).
I have a knee jerk reaction to respond to these situations with "Kannada gottilla!" (as we are trained to say in Bangalore). Thankfully, better sense prevailed and I mumbled some incomprehensible reply which made him move on. His question though... concerns me now. Dude! This is Dubai... Dubai.... mind you, not Renigunta or Tadipatri!! Hopefully, you didn't catch the wrong plane and land up in Dubai when you intended to go to Hyderabad!
The second.. and more provoking point is... why did he ask *me*? I was standing beside a newspaper rack all right, but so were dozens of people. Did he mistake me for a newspaper vendor by any chance? Probably, there *is* a problem with my white jacket. It was after all, the same jacket that I wore to the Bangalore City Railway Station and had a bunch of people run up to me with "Sir, sir.. we have an issue!" And when I walked a few yards with them, one of them actually pointed to a tube light in a compartment and said that it is not working!! Evidently, he had mistaken me for a railway inspector!
I need a "sartorial makeover" for sure...and right now!!
The route... The plane doesn't fly from Dubai Westwards- across the Atlantic and over the American continent to reach San Francisco. Instead, it travels North- over Iran and Russia. It hits the Arctic Ocean, goes exactly over the North Pole and dives into Canada on the other side of the globe! From Canada, it heads Southwards, goes past Seattle and lands at San Francisco!
So... here's how it has unfolded till now. The writing will be intermittent... but I do intend to blog as and when I find some time. There's going to be nothing of merit in these writings..just some rough sketches...more like a cartoonist's doodles... done with a bold, free hand... which I may perchance read another day. Or may be, it will go completely unread, which would be equally fine!
The plane ride was excruciating. No word describes it better. 4 hours to Dubai and close to 16 hours..at a stretch... from Dubai to San Francisco.
The "Garuda Purana" is supposed to contain a graphic description of hell- the multifarious ways an inhabitant is tortured. Some are fried in oil and others impaled mercilessly...all in keeping with the magnitude of the crime committed on the earth. The list of punishments in this Purana needs an urgent addendum- this plane ride! I have definitely expiated some of my sins by simply enduring this ride... couped up in a cattle-class (economy class!) seat with no elbow room, no leg-room, no sleep, no proper vegetarian food, a screaming kid in the adjoining seat, an equally frustrated mother.... and restrooms which get increasingly unusable as the hours go by.
Just before we boarded this flight, a gentleman in a jibba (kurta) and white dhoti...walked up to me at Dubai and asked me.. out of the blue, "Telugu newspaper leda?" ("There is no Telugu newspaper, isn't it?") (which I figured out only later).
I have a knee jerk reaction to respond to these situations with "Kannada gottilla!" (as we are trained to say in Bangalore). Thankfully, better sense prevailed and I mumbled some incomprehensible reply which made him move on. His question though... concerns me now. Dude! This is Dubai... Dubai.... mind you, not Renigunta or Tadipatri!! Hopefully, you didn't catch the wrong plane and land up in Dubai when you intended to go to Hyderabad!
The second.. and more provoking point is... why did he ask *me*? I was standing beside a newspaper rack all right, but so were dozens of people. Did he mistake me for a newspaper vendor by any chance? Probably, there *is* a problem with my white jacket. It was after all, the same jacket that I wore to the Bangalore City Railway Station and had a bunch of people run up to me with "Sir, sir.. we have an issue!" And when I walked a few yards with them, one of them actually pointed to a tube light in a compartment and said that it is not working!! Evidently, he had mistaken me for a railway inspector!
I need a "sartorial makeover" for sure...and right now!!
The route... The plane doesn't fly from Dubai Westwards- across the Atlantic and over the American continent to reach San Francisco. Instead, it travels North- over Iran and Russia. It hits the Arctic Ocean, goes exactly over the North Pole and dives into Canada on the other side of the globe! From Canada, it heads Southwards, goes past Seattle and lands at San Francisco!
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