HAPPY NEW YEAR

The year 2006 has been and will remain as a landmark in my life. Putting it in a program management way “Lots of milestones were achieved on-time, in both my personal and professional lives”. I thank the Almighty and my well-wishers for all this. A short glimpse of the happenings is depicted in this collage.

For the expectations and resolutions, a similar post will follow ;-)…

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!!!!!

Did somebody eat my cheese?

It was a calm afternoon. The roads were totally empty. The wind was strong and the leaves on the banyan tree were dancing to it. The noise from the swaying of the leaves was interrupted periodically by the chirping of the little sparrows. I was enjoying all this sitting in my new easy chair. Ranganayaki was busy with Gnana Bhoomi. It was a part of her routine. After a short nap, she would make herself comfortable in the pai and read at-least 5-6 pages of her favorite magazine. But soon all this came to a standstill. I could feel that there was something new in the room, probably somebody. I turned around and my eyes fell on a small creature moving near the wardrobe. “It’s a mouse”, I squealed. Ranaganayaki came running to the study room, “Enna Krishna, enna sollerael... namma aathule eli yaa..enga irrukku” (What are you saying? Mouse in our house? Where is it?)

I immediately closed the bedroom and the pooja room doors. I made sure that there was only one way out from the house and decided to drive the mouse away. I ran into the store room and grabbed a perambu (Bamboo Stick). Now it was a contest and the winner would survive in the house. The immense strength in me that was sleeping all these days had woken up. I imagined myself as Achilles and I had to win over Hector (The Mouse). Nevertheless, I was not going to kill that poor thing. I tapped the stick near the wardrobe.

There was no sound at all. The mouse was afraid. I switched on the torch light and I could see the glittering eyes underneath the wardrobe. It had cute little whiskers and was shivering in fear. Now that my enemy was in close range, I decided to attack it. I tapped the perambu, near the mouse. It squeaked and ran to the corner the room. “Anga irrukku….Aatho…Aiyoo kutti elli…paavum. Don’t hit it” shouted Ranganayaki standing on the stool. I tapped the stick again on the floor. The mouse ran and made its way through the door towards the pooja room. It couldn’t enter and then it turned around and ran for the main door. I followed it with the stick. The mouse ran and ran and finally stopped in the road.

The mouse turned around to see if I was following it. It had won the battle as it got away without any injury. Ranganayaki and I were watching it from the door. Ranganayaki would have been proud of me and even I got this feeling that I had achieved something in life. After all it’s a man’s thing! It was a win-win condition. The mouse turned again to the house, shook its head and ran off to the next house. It was probably saying “I will be back with a bang. Wait for me kishnaaa!”

Travel Log

Log 1:

My wife and I reached the airport at 9.30 PM. We got down from the auto and walked towards the entranceand joined the queue. My attention soon fell on Mr. X. He was standing ahead in the queue with a red duffle bag on his right hand, a laptop dangling from his left shoulder and a novel in his left hand. He had strange mannerisms. He would either scratch his nose or turn his head here and there or pretend as if it was stuffy and would often stretch his hand. He was probably trying to attract everyone’s attention or was trying to impress somebody else in the airport “Lakshmi, look at that guy” I murmured to my wife while pointing my finger to Mr. X. “Must be one of those YO chaps” said Lakshmi. We kept giggling at his mannerisms. Soon we reached the airline desk and checked-in the baggage. Mr.X was traveling by business class in the same aircraft. He was standing beside me, but in the next lane. “So, when does this aircraft reach Chennai? Is there any book shop in the airport? Do you have any special lounge for the business class people where I can relax for sometime?” At this, a frustrated Lakshmi said “Tho daa... Irrukkartho local airport...approm enna aatam”

Soon we joined the queue for security check and it was a very long one. There would have been at least 100 people in the queue. Mr. X was already in the queue and was very impatient. He was in conversation with a gentleman standing behind him “I am a business class traveler, dunno why they want me to stand in the queue”. We were pissed off and my wife was already muttering ‘wonderful’ words about him. Suddenly, Mr. X walked out of the queue, to an airport authority, who was almost close to me and asked him “Do you have a separate queue for the business class? This queue is big and I can’t stand in this”. At this the airport authority said in a loud voice “Sir, there is only one queue. Please go and stand there”.

Log 2:

I had just boarded the aircraft. I was traveling in this airline for the first time. The interiors were good and quite appealing. I reached my seat, dumped my luggage and settled down. I started fiddling with the seat belt and soon my hands reached out for the newspaper and the magazines. A middle aged man in a blue blazer entered the aircraft and walked towards my seat. He put his laptop and sat on the aisle seat next to me. He had a Sony palm top in his hand and an organizer on the other. He updated something with the stylus and soon picked up his phone and started talking. He had an excellent accent. The in-flight announcements had begun and safety instructions were in progress. I was searching for the earphones all over the place and finally it stuck me that it could probably be beneath the seat. I put my hand under the seat and picked a large pouch. The guy sitting next to me gave me a stare and his eyes were really wide. I turned around to realize much to my dismay that I had picked the life jacket! And it so happened, that the air hostess was explaining about the life jacket.