My English summer - Day 02

31st May'10: It felt like being in a dream, waking up and remembering where I was. After breakfast PC and I walked to the station and I learnt about Travelcards. She saw me off on the train to London Waterloo after ensuring that I was carrying water, warm outerwear and her phone card. Love you PC!

It was all happening so fast, there wasn't a lot of time to think and so a lot of it didn't sink in for days. I began my first day in London with a walk down the South Bank, from the London Eye to Waterloo bridge. Now I love walking around a new place, it is really the best way I can think of to explore the sights, so I had looked up some websites that featured interesting walks and walking tours of London. I got myself a map and well, I just walked and walked!

South Bank is a very lively, colourful side of London. You walk along the Thames, getting views of the iconic Big Ben among other things, and alongside on the promenade you can see street performers, art exhibits, tourists like you...it's a fun way to pass some time.

I crossed the river and took a bus to Hyde Park, because I wanted to join this free walking tour that starts from there every day at 1pm. I reached just in time, found the red-shirted guide and signed up. This walking tour lasted for about 2 hours, and it was a large group so sometimes one missed out on hearing what the guide had said, but it was an interesting way to get an introduction to the city. We covered quite a lot of ground - Green Park, Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, Horseguards, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

After this tour I found I had some time so took the tube over to Tower Hill. The Tube Map is a wonder, it is so beautifully designed and makes the whole complex network so easy to understand, great job done.

Entrance fee to the Tower of London is frighfully expensive. I shelled out 17 Pounds for my ticket, and then found that I couldn't see the Crown Jewels since there was a mile-long queue and they were about close in an hour - early closing due to Bank Holiday. But walking around the Tower was interesting. I liked the Medieval Palace, saw the ravens (it is said that if the ravens leave the Tower, the English monarchy will fall, so one can imagine how well cared for these birds must be), got my picture taken with a Yeoman Warder (maybe a very touristy thing to do, but good fun anyway). Saw the place where Anne Boleyn was executed. Interestingly Tower Green where a number of executions have been held was on this day hosting a wedding reception party!



After this visit it was time to get back to Waterloo and take the train to PC's place. I'd seen so much in this first day, my head was just full and I had two weeks of my holiday to look forward to. Next stop - Edinburgh!!





My English summer - Day 01

I hate, absolutely hate, having to pack for myself. It takes me ages to decide what I want to carry, then collect it all together, and then go through the whole irritating process of getting everything to fit into the case and still remain unbroken/unbent/uncreased. The longer the trip, the more harried the packing gets. So consider that this was to be a 14 day overseas trip and one gets the idea...So yeah, the day before my departure for London was a chaotic, stressful time that I thankfully do not remember that well.

The flight to Dubai was uneventful, and I loved being able to see the desert from the plane. The T3 terminal at Dubai is great, but it's really huge which means sometimes a loooong walk to make your onward connection. When you are short of time, it can be a bit of a problem. Still, I made the connection and managed to get into Gatwick as scheduled. PC had arranged for a Woking cabbie to pick me up so it was quite easy. By the time I reached Woking it was late evening and I was too tired to think. It was awesome seeing PC after so many years, and there was lots to catch up on once I'd got some rest. I slept like the proverbial log.

My English summer

An earlier post mentioned my summer trip - the big birthday gift I gave to myself this year

http://nomadicdreamz.blogspot.com/2010/09/i-did-it.html

I have lost count of the number of times I abandoned travel plans because I couldn't get someone to travel with and didn't feel able to just go off on my own. Then this year I finally realised what a waste the waiting game was.

It began with a tiny germ of an idea - Kingfisher was launching a new Delhi - London connection and was giving a highly discounted introductory offer to travel agents. I ultimately couldn't manage the Kingfisher flights but by then the idea had taken root and I just couldn't stop my dreaming. So, long hours were spent poring over travel sites and guides till I finally picked up the courage to go ahead and book my Emirates flight to London.

Having a friend who stayed just a 30 minute train ride from London was a safety net - so it was a solo trip but there was someone I had, to stay with for some days and to lean on when..if...the solo-ness got too much for me. And gradually as I surfed and read, my plans took shape and widened in scope. I finally ended up spending a week around London and a week in Scotland. Loved it to bits, came back with a camera full of pictures and of course loads of memories. My next few posts are going to try and put in words the wonder of this trip, and just how special it was for me. So much that one of my favourite pastimes these days is to research other places to travel to. Bitten, well and truly!

So, as usual, I've managed to neglect my blog for months on end. No matter what I tell myself, I don't seem to have the patience or the discipline to do this regularly any more. I know I want to, but I can't seem to put down in words the millions of thoughts messing around in my head at any point of time...

Of course the last two months have probably been some of the toughest in my professional life; the big exodus of people from the organisation and then those of us who stayed back trying to get things back on track. There have been 16 hour work days seven days a week, there have been sleepless nights and missed meals, and a lot of bull from a lot of sources. But the worst seems over now, and I am looking forward to the challenges posed by my new role now.

Christmas is a lull as far as work is concerned, so after a long time I actually have time to sit down at home and do something other than work. I intend to use this time to do what I've been planning to do for the last six months - write about some of the trips I've taken over the last couple of years. Let's see if I can stick to it this time!!

Commonwealth: The hottest topic of discussion these days everywhere.
CWG: The guys we all hate, for making a laughing stock of us around the world.
Rs 70,000 Crores: The estimated cost of this fiasco.
Games Village: A "luxurious residence" for games athletes - where the roofs leak, toilets are jammed up, light fittings are missing, and stray dogs abound - not to mention the stagnant water capable of being a dengue/malaria source. Where so far only half the towers are complete and where many of the completed towers don't even have furniture installed yet.
Lalit Bhanot - A man with questionable standards of hygiene!!
Suresh Kalmadi - The master of the 3 ring circus, whose tall claims and empty promises have given the press plenty of material to rip apart...
Lackadaisical: The attitude of the government so far
Corrupt: A word we need to find an alternative to - it doesn't even begin to describe the crooks running the CWG operation. So many personal fortunes made out of "common wealth"
Chaos: What to expect when the CWG-exclusive traffic lanes become operational
Shame: What Indians the world over seem to be feeling at the current situation, since we all seem to have been tarred with one brush.
Apprehension: What next??

I want my money back!!!!

Had to move back to stay with my folks for a bit, because of a mild case of typhoid. Not the horrible typhoid of last year that I'd suffered through ; I didn't even need to take more than a couple of days off from work. I must say, no matter how independent one gets, there are times in life when one needs someone to fall back on. For me, that's my parents - I come to stay with them every time I'm sick, and it really makes a difference.

The one night that I was alone at my own home, with temperature crossing 102 and nobody around to even put a cold compress, sticks in my mind though. I can't remember a time when I felt more alone and depressed, and it makes me realise how important a support structure is - and that means not just parents but others. The way things are right now, I don't think I have that. You kill yourself working, so much that you neglect all or most of your friendships and relationships, and at the end of the day this is where you end up. Alone!

Laut ke buddhu...

Three years ago when I left my previous organisation, I had loudly declared to anyone who cared to listen that commuting to Gurgaon every day was not for me and that I'd rather not work than be in a place where I spent three to five hours just travelling to and from work. Well, things have now come circle and my current organisation has - after months of waffling - finally shifted their office. Where to? Gurgaon, of course. I'm back to my early morning wake up calls, long commutes, and insane traffic. As they say, never say never....

I did it!

The highlight of this year for me has been a two week solo trip to England and Scotland that I did on my own this summer. After years of waiting for "the right time", for someone to maybe go with, for the requisite "bank balance" and a lot of other things, I finally managed to screw up the courage and go off on my own. My first ever long haul trip, and yes my first solo vacation. It was even better than I had thought it would be, and I came back with lots of pictures and memories as well as a new-found confidence in myself. I wonder now why I didn't do this earlier! Parts of this trip will be coming up on this blog soon. I'm now looking at ideas and options for my next trip, since I've promised myself to do this on a regular basis now. No cure for the travel bug!

Back...again

I've been meaning to get back to blogging actively for a long time now, but something or the other kept making me put it off. Apart from my innate laidback-ness, I think there is this odd fear that I might not have anything to write about, or even that I mightn't remember how to! Only one way to find out. So here's looking at me, and yet another shot at doing something I used to love to do but gave up along the way...

Apology to my blog

For being away for a year, almost exactly to the day...For letting work and family and friends and Facebook and books and everything else take up so much of my time, that blogging took a backseat...For not having the discipline to take out time regularly and post, even though I know that I need to.
No matter how often I go away, or for how long, I always return.

Talking to myself

The gift of the gab. You either have it, or you don't. If (like me) you don't have it, you (like me) can't stop wishing you did. Every time you're in a conversation with someone and are left with nothing to say. Every time you think of a brilliant observation to make - hours after the opportunity is past. Each time someone with a quicksilver tongue manages to get attention in a way you can only dream of. Each time you are left feeling a little foolish and a little dull, and come back home to talk to your blog...

I underwent a root canal treatment on a wisdom tooth...four super-painful sessions...and then the dentist found that the tooth is so crooked that the RCT cannot be successfully completed. Damn, I wish she'd realised this four weeks ago...So anyway, this evening I somehow managed to screw up my courage and got the extraction done. And now, the pain.....Oh man the pain....

I'd begun a post tonight intending to rant about my problems: work and life and everything else in between. Then, as I was maybe half-way thru it, I found myself talking to S. She seemed to be a little off today so I asked...and then it all came out..a horror of a story which I will not mention here coz it would be a betrayal of a confidence...But I was astounded to hear of the things she's gone through in her very young life. I'm now looking at her with very new eyes and with a lot more respect.
After that conversation I find myself amazed that I have been messing my head over trivial things like workplace politics, weight gain, and other such incidentals.
So, no more rants. I'm going to log off, put on my Kermit-the-Frog woollen socks, go to bed and hopefully have pleasant dreams. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

I can't get over the irony of it. Even as I was writing my last post (Safe so far??? How's that for a joke??) the terror attack on Mumbai had begun. I don't think I grasped the magnitude of it till the following morning when I realised all the details. Those 60 odd hours were probably the worst in most of our lives, even if one of our own friends or family members wasn't trapped out there. This was a first. This was an unprecedented, unimaginable attack that brought a city to its knees and glued us to our television sets for the duration of the siege. Over 180 dead, more than 240 wounded. The "Jihadis" and their senseless violence put an end to hundreds of dreams, destroyed countless families and left the entire nation feeling insecure, impotent and angry.

We watched the images on TV, read the reports on the net, and shed tears for all those unknown innocent persons caught in the tragedy. We lit candles and observed a one-minute silence in their memory. We prayed for them. Beyond that, most of us don't know what to do. And this helplessness is combined with an impotent rage that grows stronger ever day. Rage at the terrorists. At our lax security arrangements. Above all, rage against the politicians - for their crass and indecent remarks, their efforts to use even this gigantic tragedy for political one-upmanship, their complete lack of sensitivity. How I wish these people were at the Oberoi that night instead.

The PM gave an unbelievably cold speech full of "we will" and "we shall" and a lot of the usual waffling. Dr Singh, this was a time when you could have redeemed yourself. And you as usual muffed it. The Opposition leaders imply that the entire tragedy wouldn't have happened, had they been in power. Yeah, right. And the Marathi manoos who was hiding inside his house while Mumbai was in uproar, would have us believe that those who died were all Marathis and only his MNS was involved in rescue ops. Silly me, I never realised that the Marcos and NSG teams were all Maharashtrians. I'm sure, before pulling people out of the burning Taj, the firemen ensured that only Marathis were brought out first, right? Oh grow up Mr Thakre!!

In our country precious financial resources are used to fund ministerial jaunts, organise Commonwealth Games shows involving Bollywood celebrities, buy imported cars and expensive planes for politicos, anything and everything. But crucial areas like coastal security are not given any importance. Commando units set up for anti-terror ops are diverted to provide VIP security to those egotistical idiots who pass for "leaders" these days. MP's get bungalows and cars and laptops and regular pay-raises. Soliders and cops get paid peanuts, get only very basic amenities, often are cut off from their families for long intervals...Our government has funds for any silly activity you can think of, but not to give its police forces some much-needed training and proper equipment. They are sent in to fight these new hi-tech militants with just their lathis and sometimes an ancient 303.

So what have we learned from the last few days? Something we all knew already - terrorism has mutated into newer, more frightening forms and we as a country are not yet fully equipped to fight it. If our politicians and bureaucrats did their jobs, and let the police and the forces do theirs without interference, we might be able to get there. Maybe. And until then, how many more 26/11's do we have to face? I don't even want to answer that.

Safe so far

The travel industry in India is going through a kind of phase never seen before. Nothing has hit us so badly since 9/11...and this downturn is by far worse than that one. Bookings are down, scores of cancellations have come in from every market, programs are being re-priced at wafer-thin margins or even nett cost, just to bring in some numbers. The world changed this year, and may never be the same again. I know scores of people who lost their jobs in this industry, and rumours of pay-cuts and downsizing have been flying around for some time now.
So when the boss announced that for the moment there are no job or pay cuts happening, everybody heaved a sigh of relief. Safe for now.