A mail from a dear friend woke me from my slumber. The mail simply said:
ABHI
IF you keep a blog then update it!!!
And I did realize that it has been quite some time that I was away from blogging. Well, I should rather say that I had mastered the art of postponing things. Within no time, Today becomes tomorrow and tomorrow becomes never. Then, suddenly on a working-long-weekend-Eid, the command came from my boss that I need to go to Patna for a meeting and here I am up at 38000 ft, with my laptop, keyboard and fingers working in sync, without a cell call or FB alert or Intercom command disturbing the chain of thoughts!!
The newspaper, the official airline, (it can be only Air India and none else), provides has stories on the austerity drive launched by the Government and every Tom, Dick and Harry columnist is taking potshots at the move. Well, it was a move that was loaded against the word go. Like the one which says that we can fly Air India only. My Patna visit has to have a night over as there are no return AI flights to Delhi in the evening. And since I have no desire to spend the night in Patna, I am forced to travel to Ranchi by night train and have Jharkhand review meet there and catch the afternoon flight back to Delhi. So much for austerity.
And the fuss over Business Class and Economy Class has other classic apsects that no one notices. Government books all its tickets through Balmer laurie, the sarkaari travel agency. And these guys excel in booking full fare tickets. So if you dont check, a 5000 buck Delhi-Mumbai will cost 15000 bucks with these guys. I remember last month, I had gone to Vietnam for WITFOR 2009. These guys gave me a 59000 Rs Economy Class ticket. My other colleague who had booked the tickets through a regular travel agency travelled on the same flights on a 40000 Rs Business Class ticket!!!
By the way, this trip, these guys did something more funny. My office had asked them to book me for Hanoi, Vietnam. Hanoi airport is called Noi Bai Airport and there is no airport called Hanoi. So these guys booked me for Vientaine, which is actually the capital of Laos. I had no clue as noone noticed this blunder, even the Ministry of Civil Aviation, authorised to allow non AI travel allowed me to travel on Thai airways on a flight going to Vientaine, Laos for a conference happening in Hanoi, Vietnam. I even crossed the immigration gate with a Visa for Vietnam and ticket for Laos. Only in Bangkok, when I realized that my colleague has a morning flight and my flight was only in the afternoon, I asked the Thai Airways counter if they could put me also on the morning flight. They said there are no morning flights. I said, there is and 682, is the flight my colleague is travelling on. Pat came the reply, that 682 goes to Hanoi. I said, so am I, and then she gave me the shocking news that actually I was flying to Vientaine, Laos and that too without a Visa and would have surely got declared a persona non grata and deported back by the next flight. Fortunately, I could get the Vientaine legs cancelled and get a fresh ticket for Hanoi by the morning flight and attend the conference.
So Austerity drives need to look at the larger picture. otherwise we will get mired by the Twitter Chatter which jumps to conclusion on hearing the Cattle word. If it is cattle, it got to be derogatory and insulting to the entire human civilization, without realizing what the cows - holy or otherwise - think of we looking down upon cattle. Anyways, such stories will make the twitter man wiser. He should consider himself lucky that most of these morons have not read his classic - A Great Indian Story - else he could have been called Anti Gandhian - for his Mango Yatra take and other interpretations from the anecdotal history of modern India.
Anyways, these stories and chatter will continue. The stewardess is asking me to shut down electronic devices and close the trays and sit up for landing. So this story comes to an end, thanks to AI.
Till then lets think of more austerity measures!!!
