What I miss!

There and Back Again

Sorry, Bilbo Baggins. The title of this post seems the same as that of your immortal book, but then you’re a fictional character, and hence your book or its title doesn’t have any copyright protection. Haha. Gotcha, right?

Well, I make this post from my home city of Chandigarh, having returned from an arduous train journey aboard the Jan Shatabdi that plies from Delhi to Chandigarh. Arduous, eh? Yes, in more ways than one.

I think I can be the brand ambassador for Toyota’s JIT (just-in-time) methodology. Never ever have I boarded a train more than 5 minutes before its departure from the New Delhi Railway Station. (Sumit’s law of errr….. train boarding??? No matter how early you start, traffic on the roads conspires to make you miss your train.)

Sometimes, after stuff like this happens to me, I throw my head back, point to myself, say “You loser” and laugh loudly. (This is normally done when no one’s watching.) At other times, I shake my head sadly, look up towards the sky and sigh, “Why me?”

Anyway, so I boarded one of those cabs that ply illegally from Gurgaon to Delhi, stuffing people like birds in a coop, with the driver hell-bent on practicing for Formula I. As luck would have it, the man sitting just behind me couldn’t stay quiet for even a minute. He was rambling, and rambling, and rambling, and…. (get the picture, right?)

Then, the seat was such that we’d all be thrown forward as the driver braked, and then thrown backward as he accelerated. So, the entire journey was spent with the driver cursing other road users, none of whom seemed to have any sense whatsoever, the man in the back seat cursing/talking/shouting in some language I was unable to identify. The journey was punctuated with traffic jams caused by doting parents who tried parking as close to school gates as possible, to avoid their wards any inconvenience.

So what, if they were blocking the way for a few hundred road users waiting behind? I mean, people these days, SHEESH!! They can’t even wait 10-12 minutes, before honking. At least have some respect for family ties.

After the interminable journey, the next part was the much more comfortable Metro ride from Karol Bagh to Connaught Place (Yes, I refuse to call it Rajiv Chowk. Bah!!) and then to the New Delhi Railway Station. I rushed to the platform and found that the train hadn’t left me behind. Whew!! I waded through waves of humanity of all shapes and sizes, before reaching my seat (which incidentally was occupied by a South Indian uncleji accompanied by a motormouth teen.)

I sat there for a few minutes, willing the train to move. The gods heard me! (But, they exploited the loopholes in my wish, and the train ‘moved’ but only just.) Since the number of words the teen was speaking per minute was more than the number of metres being covered by the train in the same duration, I decided to shift to a place much more alluring.

I shifted to the middle of the chair car compartment, where the best possible company for a solitary man travelling alone was present. Having eyed the fortuitously vacant neighbouring seat, I made a lunge for it and made it. I turned to my right and smiled at the object of my affection. (Argh, you useless people! I was ogling the power socket to plug in my laptop. Duh!!)

Then, I pulled out my laptop and plugged it in, but the power socket was out. With a sigh, I settled back into my seat, and began to read ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini. (Cry out in disbelief if you want, but yes I am a voracious reader who had not read the book till yesterday.)

Eventually, the book turned out to be the only positive of the evening. The TTE came, saw that I was not carrying a copy of my ticket, and rudely asked me to quote the PNR number, all the while muttering under his breath. I mimicked the muttering-under-the-breath bit, and gave him all the details in as surly a manner as possible. He fined me 50/- and issued me a duplicate ticket. Bah!!

I settled lower and lower into my chair, and became totally engrossed in the book. And so I stayed till the train stopped at Ambala. We reached Ambala at 1825 hours and stayed there till 1915 hours. (The 35 km track to Chandigarh is a single line, so we had to accommodate more important trains.) I made some deeply disgruntled noises and went back to reading.

“Trains! Never on time!!” said a voice, breaking into my reverie.

I looked up to see an elderly uncleji looking at me, in anticipation of a reply. I nodded at him and smiled, turning back to my book. I think he took that as a signal to continue. (Little did I realise that I had unleashed an avalanche of words upon myself.)

So, within the next 20 minutes, I got to know that the man was a Diploma holder in Mech. Engg, had been working with BRO for 30 years, had two sons, the elder one being an MBA student at some Hyderabad-based college offering MBA in agriculture and the younger one being an engineering student.

Meanwhile, the train whistled mournfully, and reluctantly moved on. Now, suddenly uncleji asked me about my background and credentials. I mentioned in passing that I just completed my MBA. His face remained blank when I mentioned my alma mater – XLRI. Then, he smiled sympathetically at me and told me that college brand is important and that’s why he only sent his sons to the ‘best’ colleges. When he asked me my specialization and I told him ‘HR’, he wanted to know what MBAs in ‘HRA’ did, and whether they were responsible for managing the HRA of employees in companies. (ARGH!!)

I tried explaining for a few minutes, but then the man had given up on me by then. Or perhaps, his attention was diverted by the train that had stopped again. (For the first time, I thanked Indian Railways for being inefficient, and Ms. Mamata Banerjee for being a nincompoop and a clod.)

I finished reading the last few pages of the book, as the train pulled into the station, and made a beeline for the exit, looking around to make sure that no uncles or any such menacing figures were chasing me. And so, having met my father who’d been abusing Ms. Mamatadi for over an hour, we got into the car and drove back home.

P.S. The book is fantastic! In fact, you shouldn’t wait till an uncle pushes you towards it on a boring train journey.

Sometimes, you just know…

… that it’s not going to be your day.

Well, the day began brightly enough. As usual, I grumpily pulled myself off the bed, and began to deconstruct the happenings of last night as I wiped the drool off the laptop’s keyboard. Well, at around midnight, I had been watching ‘Ek Chaalis ki Last Local’ – having heard that it was worth a watch and had apparently dozed off somewhere in between.

(Btw, you evil mind! The drool was not because of the presence of an ‘oomphy’ Ms. Dhupia in the movie. For the record, I don’t even like her.)

Anyhow, I digress. So, I turned my gaze towards my wrist to look at the time and then realised that I have not worn a watch in ages. (No, I don’t have chronometrophobia – the fear of watches/clocks. It’s just that I keep losing them.)

So, I looked at the luminous display of my mobile phone, and my eyes nearly popped out of sockets (ala Jim Carrey in The Mask). It was 8.26 am. There was no way I could shave, bathe, get my dreadlocks in some kind of order, have breakfast, and reach office before 9 am. On second thoughts, I could do all the things 3-4 times, in the time that it would need me to reach office. (That’s your cue, regular reader, to recall the last post written berating the traffic in Gurgaon. As for the non-regular readers, HMPH!!)

Then began one of the biggest exercises in optimization. I had never tried brushing teeth and shaving simultaneously. (Note: It doesn’t save much time, and should only be attempted if you use a good razor.) After performing other morning ablutions that should not be detailed on a blog, I was ready. Almost.

I literally ‘washed down’ my toast with a tall glass of cold coffee, and made my way to the parking lot. After revving the engine, I took off with all the urgency of Narain Karthikeyan Michael Schumacher, leaving a few startled early morning walkers in my wake.

And lo and behold! It seemed that I had beaten the traffic after all. It was 8.50 am, and looked like the morning crowd was still a few minutes away. I pumped my fist in exhilaration, and stepped down on the accelerator, determined to make my podium finish. A few minutes later, having nearly run over a woman who seemed to be training to be the next Usain Bolt (Either that, or maybe she was just running to board one of the infrequent buses to Delhi. Or maybe, Big Bazaar had announced an ‘early bird’ sale and you know… ), I reached office.

I made my way up to the 7th floor with remarkable agility and speed. (Oh, believe me it takes sincere effort to hold open a closing lift door, and step in.)

I entered the office to find it deserted. Huh? Just because the MD is away, these people are chilling out, eh? (Sumit’s law of punctuality: The day you reach office early, there’s no one to see you.) Muttering furiously at the tardiness of others, I plugged in my laptop and opened its lid, to see that the time was 8.01 am.

Yes, somehow my new-fangled, Samsung Corby had auto-adjusted the time and set it one hour ahead. (Blast you, Samsung! We don’t have daylight-saving time here.)

And so, instead of 9 am, I was in office at 8 am. AAARGHHHHHH.

P.S. No, I’m not ‘employed’. The office being mentioned is that of my Uncle’s company. Till I join my job, I am just helping him a bit in setting up some HR processes. So, I’m not even supposed to have fixed office hours. Double AAAARGGHHHH.

Honk honk! Move, you moron!!

I’ve spent the last couple of days in Millennium City, Gurgaon. And well, my hitherto dull life has taken a much more happening turn in the last 48 hours. I had been fuming at the emptiness of it all, sitting idle and twiddling my thumbs in boring old Chandigarh. (For the record, even though the IPL might have you believe otherwise, twiddling one’s thumbs is an expression that is not to be equated with ‘oongli cricket’.)

Anyway, in just two days, I realised that life in Gurgaon can be anything but ‘emply’ – especially if you’re referring to the streets. If you’re someone who’s used to living in the ‘fast lane’, avoid Gurgaon at all costs. Because, the fast lane doesn’t exist in Gurgaon traffic. Come to think of it, the concept of lane also doesn’t exist. :|

The entire scene at each crossing resembles one at a battlefield. Every inch of space is fought for, and armies emerge from various directions, determined to stall the progress of those marching on from other directions.

I do think India must be among the countries with the least safe driving practices. You find lanes being switched at will, pedestrians walking across the road with utter disdain for their own safety, people with one hand on the wheel and the other firmly clasping the phone to their ear for that urgent-call-that-just-can’t-be-taken-later. It makes you want to scream, kick, punch, abuse, and then kick some more. (Talk about road rage, eh? That’s where it probably comes from.)

Traffic cops stand by the side, leisurely chewing tobacco and checking out girls. Of course, once in a while these guys realise that their incomes are not sufficient to fund their ‘extra curricular activities’ and stop an erring motorist or two. After a few rounds of negotiation and much of the motorists cash-on-hand consumed, these gentlemen resume their vigil.

Praised be the ones who honk, lest we fall asleep due to the ‘speed’ of the traffic.