Dated 20th March, 10:00 PM
It seems to be quite a habit of mine to start off the sentence in this blog with something like “I’m back”, “back again” and similar other blah blah stuff. Not this time champ…although I have a sneaky feeling that I have actually done it again.
I have been trying to write something since I landed up in India, but I guess I suffered the famous “writer’s block”, which for everyone’s reference (and to avoid any case of …), is something that is used quite often by Mr Scott Adams in his books. Anyone who reads this blog would realize that I am a big fan of his writing and I have been using quite a few of his examples often, with due credit to him ofcourse.
But this time around its not about my lazy attitude, or about good ol Scotty…this time around its about my trip to India, more specifically to Chennai…I am not sure how I am going to go through this one, but I have a sneaky feeling that it might be in flashback. Should be fun, atleast I hope it will be…
I am on my way to Delhi right now, in a Spicejet ( a domestic carrier) flight and luckily I have the aisle seat on the emergency exit, which for a man of my dimensions is the best bargain on a flight. Lets rewind a little actually…the morning today started of with the same thought as every morning for the past 20 days…”why is everything so bloody expensive in India”…I have been waking up with that thought since I landed up in India, and still, after 20 days I have not been able to cope up with the fact that my country has become so expensive in the past year. The only respite I get is when I convert the money spent in dollars…not that I am very happy doing it, but it somehow calms my nerves a little. I have had a tough time convincing myself that India was not as expensive a country when I left about an year ago…I still am having the same issues in the flight as the grumpy looking air hostess tries to sell a sandwich worth 60 bucks to me…Ofcourse I refused…i would rather be hungry than purchase a sandwich which is worth 60 bucks…
Enough of my cheap financial talks…take your time and decide whether its India that’s expensive or its me who has turned into a cheap little weasel. Do remember that I paid the auto rickshaw guy 80 bucks for a 3 Km ride from my office to the place I stay Ofcourse I could not have argued much, because the only thing I understood in my conversation with him was “80 sir…no no 80 sir”…the rest I assumed was Tamil for “What an idiot…I screwed him totally today…God give me one of his species everyday”.
Lets flashback a little more…I arrived at the Chennai airport well before time my flight was due…Its been a long time since I have been to a domestic airport in India, but I knew what to expect. The baggage check, the boarding pass and then the security check; I landed up a seat inside the lounge waiting for my flight, but as luck would have it it started pouring down heavily in Chennai and the flight was delayed for an hour. I had to spend my time watching “Lost” on my ipod and hoping that no one takes my watching the story of people wrecked in a plane crash otherwise, on an airport…Luckily no one did…I made a small visit to the airport lavatory as well, which was not a visit worth bragging about. I was actually left wondering, how talented people who visited this place before me were…there were quite a few artistic paintings on the walls accompanied with very explicit language, which made me wonder why we don’t produce enough M.F Hussains in this country, Believe me, the imagery, though very provocative, was symmetrically drawn and the language associated with it, again not suitable for children, was very interesting to read. For everyone who thinks that somewhere down in this blog I will reveal what all that was…you are mistaken…but I am sure I have raised enough curiosity that the next time you visit Chennai airport, you may end up discovering the art yourself…
To be continued….
Ended : 10:50 PM
The Unusual Rant 