I Wander

the world as I see it…

Archive for July, 2009

Road Trip

Jul 31

Posted by kosh in usual

In about 3 hours, I should get into a car with SJ (es-Jay aka. Kannan) and driving west for a few hours in the middle of the night to get to Bangalore. Once in Bangalore, I expect to a see a lot of this -

lb

Thats right. SJ and George (aka. Nikhil) are getting back together in Bangalore. This is going to be one crazy weekend (mostly of SJ getting his ass kicked by George). I can’t wait. Oh and did I mention that SJ is driving us both to Bangalore? Wish us me luck.

Here’s another memory from 2007 when 5 of us crammed into a tiny car and rode thousands of kilometers from Chennai to Goa and back. We drove through villages, landslides, forests, got attacked by leeches, bribed cops for no reason and just about everything else happened during the trip.

roadtrip

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Expectations

Jul 30

Posted by kosh in rants, usual

My trip has been quite a let down so far. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still like this town (maybe..) and am having a good time but the expectations that I had built up based on other people’s accounts, are now shattered.

The city is developing but nowhere close to the point where it can still call itself a major metropolitan city. The districts that lie just outside the city, and claimed to be upcoming and developing, have roads that are about 16 feet wide which means that they are really about 10 feet wide, given the housing intrusions, etc.

Now, that makes it just wide enough for a single truck to pass through…if there are no other vehicles parked on the street. Oh and did I mention that they have no roads or sewer lines or water lines for that matter? Sure, there are a bunch of infrastructure development projects being implemented in the city, but its at least 5+ years away from being livable.

But its the people that surprise me the most here. Chaos seems to be an accepted way of life with no regard to anyone else. I’ve created many scenarios for major multiple vehicle collisions by stopping at red lights, in the 8 days that I have been driving here. Fender benders are a common sight and people don’t even bother to get down or fight or ask for a compensation anymore. A cursory glance is all you can expect and they just drive away.

People litter, drive on the wrong side of the road, run red lights and do everything else that was UNacceptable, just four years ago. My friend tells me that this is how its always been and that I’ve changed and so have my expectations. I beg to differ. Four years ago, there were people who would still try to follow the rules, who would still get angry at those that break it and there were people who still cared.

Is it too much to expect people to follow basic road rules, respect other people, not litter and generally act civilized? People here, suck at self-governance and I think it is the result of a over-controlling school system and a creatively oppressed childhood filled with tuition classes and overly ambitious parents. I’m going to wait until I visit Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi before I write this country off for good.

I do however know that I will never ever consider living in Chennai again. The city I knew, the city I grew up in, is as good as dead. The one that exists in its place is one of chaos, confusion and inhabited by a species that has forgotten what it is that makes them human.

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LOL

Jul 28

Posted by kosh in usual

Couldn’t agree more.. :)

death

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Security

Jul 27

Posted by kosh in usual

It was my good friend’s (Kannan or es-jay as we call him) birthday a couple of days ago and we decided to head down to the local Marriott to grab some dinner. The security at the hotel was at an all time high, thanks to the teams that had arrivedin the city to participate in the international squash championships. I used to take pride in the fact that Chennai was probably the safest city to be in and that you could just go about and not worry about anything other than getting run over by a bus on the road.

Some 2 years later, you can still get run over by a bus and vehicles of all sizes but the numerous check points around the city and hotels and getting constantly pulled over for a check reminds you of how much the world has changed. My hometown is now on the radar for a terrorist attack. Sucks.

PS. I still think that buses and trucks are much much more deadly than any terrorist. Now, I would be genuinely scared for my life if the terrorists were trained to operate trucks on the city roads :)

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Another day, another…

Jul 27

Posted by kosh in usual

relative.

It was another uncle that came over yesterday. The topic of our conversation almost always ends up being religion. Probably because it is really important (and essential) in my mom’s side of the family and means nothing on my dad’s side. This time, my uncle was a lot more moderate in his views but felt that if someone in your family asks you to donate 100$ towards a good religious cause, you donate what you can…for example $10, which was something that both my dad and I disagreed with. Now extend that argument over to religious activities and you get the idea.

Of course, at the end of the day no one succeeded in convincing the other party (surprise!) but debates discussions with my extended family always seem to be about who gets the last word and the closing statements, than the core argument. Luckily for him, I gave up on the debate discussion about 30 mins in, and my dad eventually gave up after about an hour. Still this was heated enough for all the women in the next room to give us worried looks (and other looks filled with messages). The most cliched argument was also used – “When I was your age, I was just like you – rebellious, not caring about god, no religious activities, etc..but then I became older and got enlightened and religious”. Now, I just can’t find words for how much I hate that argument and how belittling it is to me, especially when I’m trying to make a point. I usually stop talking after such a statement and last night was no different.

Watching my dad talk made me realize how much I take after him, in his views. He’s never really been vocal about much of his thoughts all these years (for reasons that I think I understand), but I starting to feel less like a first in the family and more like a chip off the old block. Looks like my brother and I are just like our dad and his brother, or so I’d like to think.

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Relatives

Jul 25

Posted by kosh in usual

I met with my uncle and his family that came over yesterday. The evening was going pretty smooth until I opened my can of worms aka. my agnostic-atheistic beliefs. Now, my intention was not to advertise it but rather it was only in response to his questions on my ‘religious’ activities.

My uncle is convinced that

- people roam ‘topless’ and hook up with random strangers on Valentine’s day in the states.

- the partition was the worst thing to happen and that certain religions do no good…

- Narendra Modi is a hero and the Congress should be exterminated. BJP (Hindu nationalist party) should be back in power

- CNN-IBN and other news media spread anti-India sentiments abroad… although he isn’t that patriotic and thinks Hinduism is India..if that makes any sense

- Test tubes babies were invented in Hinduism thousands on years ago when Agasthya was born in a pot!

- I should look to the Hindu scriptures for ways to improve the mobile phone technology

- there exists an after-life and the ‘poonal’ is the antenna from your soul to the cosmic world

- Hinduism is the best religion and the world was once Hindu all over

And other things that are a little too extreme to be mentioned on this blog. Most of his statements were followed by my questions which led to more extreme statements. My family isn’t very religious at all but my extended family is an extreme right-wing conservative type. My mom wants me to lie about my religious preferences/activites while I’m here to keep them happy and for me to blend in, while I want to speak my mind and separate myself from them. This has all the ingredients for a major scandal and for my mom to be blamed for my satanic ways.

Looks like this will turn out to be an interesting vacation for me.

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Party report

Jul 24

Posted by kosh in usual

Last night was my first official night out in the Chennai. I met up with a few friends and headed over to ‘Dublin’ at the Park Sheraton in Chennai. Now, before we headed down to Dublin, we stopped at this TOI ‘party’ at a different hotel which was free and had a male-to-female ratio of 1000:1

We bolted out of there as soon as we could and eventually met a few other people to go to Dublin for their 7th anniversary celebrations. Looks like all the hotels are on a high state of alert these days. My car was checked for explosives at the entrance and everyone had to go through a metal detector before entering the hotel. There was a 1500rs cover to get in that night but we got in for free since my friend’s got all the connections.

The club was pretty nice and the music was pumping until the celebrity DJ Akhtar from Mumbai started playing. His music was predictable – every third song was great, his transitions sucked and he was talking pictures with his friends at the DJ booth the whole night. I felt that my Zune could have been a better DJ that night. The resident DJ Rudy was awesome and had some great dance songs and reminded me of my favorite radio station c89.5. Drinks cost a fortune at the bar here but feels like people have way too much money these days. I saw quite a few celebrities last night including Mathew Hayden, film actors Dhanush, Shaam, Namitha, Shruti Hassan among other people.

It was a fun night but people are still socially awkward and conservative here. Need to check out the night life in Bangalore and Bombay before I write this one off. I drove back at around 2AM and was stopped and had my car searched glanced (at) at a police checkpoint inside the city.

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Weather report

Jul 24

Posted by kosh in usual

Unlike Seattle, the weather in Chennai (aka. Madras) is very stable.

32C(90F) at night

37C (99F) during the day

32C(90F) room temperature

Clear skies with 0% chance of rain.

I miss Seattle.

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Traffic report

Jul 24

Posted by kosh in usual

Let me start by saying that Chennai is really hot. 93F at 3AM is not pleasant weather, contrary to what people here think is pleasant weather. Now that we have the obvious out of the way, my next report is on traffic on the city roads.

Last night was quite eventful. My dad’s car had a dead battery from not being used for 3 months and the petrol tank in his scooter dried up. So, my resourceful dad charges the battery with a home made circuit and I decided to take his car to meet a friend and buy some petrol for the scooter. The car battery died again as the gas station and a few people helped me do a jumpstart push start by pushing the car down a slope and slipping it into gear.

So I drive back home with the friend, dump half a liter of petrol into the scooter and..well, the scooter refused to start. We ditched the plans, took an ‘auto’ back to my friend’s place and took her scooter instead.

** Part 2 **

The car and the scooter have been fixed. I’m yet to take the scooter out for a spin but I’m enjoying driving around in the car. There is no such thing as doing the right thing or a right of way or any other sane road rules. Looks like everything is a go now. As long as you have your eyes 10 feet 2 feetahead of you all the time and don’t crash into anyone in front of you, you are good. I confused the living hell out of the pedestrians and other drivers on the road today by slowing down to letting them pass or stopping at the stop line. The only rule that people follow here is that the bigger vehicles get the right of way, no matter what.

Driving around the city in my dad’s car, in rush hour traffic, gives me an adrenaline boost. Although it could get tiring very easily once my amusement phase expires. I almost caused a multiple vehicle collision by following the rules trying to do the right thing.

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My journey to the other side

Jul 21

Posted by kosh in usual

Some 30+ hours ago, I embarked on a long journey from Seattle to Chennai, a place where I spent the first 19 years of my life. (yes, I added the 19 years to sound dramatic). I’m a little disappointed that I don’t quite feel like I’m home. Seattle feels like home, not Chennai :( More on that later and its probably because I’ve only been here a few hours and am a little tired.

Let me break up my journey into different stages so that it helps me express myself better.

Pre-departure (Sunday)

I spent all of Sunday (well, since I woke up at noon) packing (not really) and watching Transformers 2 at the IMAX theater. It was definitely a treat to watch all the action on the big screen. This was followed by a graduation photo-session at the Seattle Center and Kerry Park. Some Thai food after that and I was all ready to pull an all-nighter and finish up packing and crash during the flight. I did manage to pull one and finish up everything that I wanted to do that night.

Departure (Monday)

My brother and I leave for the airport at 530 in the morning for a 7AM flight. Worked out pretty well since I got to the gate some 20 minutes before boarding. Just when I was about to board..err walk to the plane (it was tiny) I heard a PA that they were overbooked and looking for volunteers to take the next flight out. This was my third such offer within a week and I figured that I might as well make some money instead of wasting time in LA. The coupon was gold – I get free round-trip tickets anywhere within Umm-erica and no price cap. GOLD!

LAX (aka WTF airport)

I’ve been to LA before, on a road trip, and never quite found it as charming as some people say it is. Its hot, dusty and so on. The LAX airport is probably the worst airport in the United States. The domestic airport felt like a dingy rat hole and there were absolutely no directions on how to get to the international terminal (not rocket science but what the hell). The international terminal was pure chaos to say the least. Everything seemed so haphazard and it was filled way beyond its capacity. It felt like a bad prototype. I check-in and find out that I have the middle seat in the 3-4-3 seat configuration on a 16hr non-stop flight to Dubai. I curse and get myself a ceasar salad from McDees (yea, dont ask…) and board the flight. Oh and I also managed to see a ginormous Airbus A380 from down under, in the wild.

16 hours too long

I’ve never really been a fan of flying for too long. 4-5 hours is all I can take, but the Boeing 777-200 operated by Emirates is definitely one of a kind. The seat reclines really well, with a natural flow, every seat has a power outlet, USB outlet and an ethernet outlet. The in-flight entertainment system had a million movies in a million languages and some really new movies too. The food was great, the service was excellent and the 16 hours just went flying by (of course, Iwatched some 5 movies to help me through it). The plane flew up north from LA, through Canada, Greenland, Iceland, north pole, and then down to Dubai. In other words, it just flew straight up the globe and then down the other side, which was a first for me and definitely cool.

DBX aka. Dubai

My layover in Dubai was really short, about 90 mins. I had just enough time to walked from my arrival gate to the departure gate and board the flight. The airport was big, just like their obsession to build the biggest of everything in the middle of a freaking desert. I was not impressed at all. I’ve seen better and it was definitely not anywhere close to the ‘connection to the world’ that they claim to be. Also, 99.5% of the staff, passengers, etc were Indian. 95% of which were south indian. I think that we should just invade Dubai and take over…I mean officially.

DBX to MAA (aka. Dubai to Madras/Chennai)

The flight was terrible, the food was worse and my co-passengers were much much worse (and rude and everything in between). I’m not going to say anything more on that part of my trip. I just wish that I could have ‘teleported’ from Dubai.

MAA (aka. Chennai aka. hometown)

I thought 90F in Dubai at 9PM was bad. It was 33C (or ~92F for my metric-challenged friends) when I flew in this morning at 3AM!! The pilot called it a pleasant weather. I beg to differ. Security/health screens and Customs were a breeze and I was out of the airport in about 30 minutes. My good friend from high school (Kannan aka. SJ) picked me up from the airport and drove me home. I crashed for an hour or so while waiting for my parents to get home. Had some good Saravana Bhavan idlis and vadas, chatted with my friends for a while until a power failure abruptly end it all.

That completes my trip report. Stay tuned for my daily and city reports coming up soon. No jet lag so far.

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