Transition

Monochrome to Colour. In one week.

Thats what its been like this past week here. The barren trees and bleak outlook from out of the office window has changed altogether into full greenery.

Surprising how just a few different shades of a colour can completely change the atmosphere. Things suddenly looking up around here. Am even willing to forgive the theft of my time.

Just hope the one foot long squirrel sitting on the window sill don't get any amorous ideas in this season.

brrr

for the bare handful of men above, the officers and ratings on the bridge, it was pure undiluted hell. but a hell not of our latter-day imagining, a strictly eastern and biblical conception, but the hell of our ancient north-european ancestors, of the vikings, the danes, the jutes, of beowulf and the monster-haunted meres the hell of eternal cold.

true, the temperature registered a mere 10deg below zero, 42deg of frost. men have been known to live, even to work in the open, at far lower temperatures. what is not so well known, what is barely realised at all, is that when freezing point has been passed, every extra mile per hour of wind is equivalent, in terms of pure cold as it reacts on a human being, to a 1 deg drop in temperature.

HMS Ulysses
Alistair Maclean

Boy, did Alistair Maclean know what he was talking about. The temperature outside is around 5 deg C. But then there seems to be a gale force wind on. Atleast thats what is sounds like from all the howling of wind through unseeable gaps in the windows.

Add to that the idiot [looks at self] who doesn't believe in the cold and decides to go for a random walk in this weather woefully short of warm clothes. Two hours of it and ones extremities are nearly frostbitten. Then there is the return to warmth. The blood flows back to the external levels of the epidermis causing wierd tingling sensations. Come to think of it think there was something about that in HMS Ulysses as well.

Definitely need to search for some Maclean eBooks.

The walk was quite worth it too. Christmas finally adding some colour to this town.

Terminal-ed

Welcome back to the Traveller's Tales. As it seems to happen towards the end of all my trips, my most recent transit experience goes wonky.

First week of June and me was all content and happy that I have a fixed return trip with no muck ups where I can screw up. Just to be doubly sure, me goes to the local HR chap on monday to see if my calculation of Saturday being the correct date for the expiry of my visa was correct or not. Me was quite confident that the date was correct seeing that I had arrived at the date using complex procedures involving the Oracle(TM) date function (No need to bore yourself wondering why I would do that)

Well, it seems I was wrong. Me complex procedures did not take into consideration the day I landed in the country. End result, all me superbly booked tickets are valid for a day on which I would in all likelyhood be arrested at immigration.

So begins the standard run around and get a ticket jamboree. Mail Monday to travel for a change in dates. Send out a reminder on Tuesday. Another in the evening. Call in on Wednesday morning. Am told to get in touch on Thursday. Like a dumbass that I still believe that I would get tickets for Friday. Thursday morning come in check my mail, no tickets. Call travel say all routes are overbooked. So thus begins the contemplation of alternatives, the brilliant idea that I would go and get immigration done on Friday night (as me flight was at 6AM in morning anyway) itself is shot down by the facilities I remember to have seen on arrival at the airport. No tickets till the evening. I resign myself to having give some gyaan about why i over stayed. Firday morning frantic call at 7:30 from the manager

Manager: "Are you out of the country?"
Me: "No."
Manager: "Get to office. Lets see what we can do."
Me: "OK"

So I reach work at 10AM. Get call from travel that they have ticket flying out to AMS for 1400 today but the connecting flight to BOM is only the next morning. I say can you get me an alternative route. Some more time wasting and travel comes back at 1045 saying this is the only ticket they can get. Without options me tells them to issue the tickets. Print it out, say bye to janta, run back home dunk all my luggage, have a bath and leave for the airport at 12.

Thus begins the 45 hours journey from Bucharest back to Bombay. Land in Amsterdam Friday evening. Just my luck, the hotel that is there within the airport terminal is undergoing renovation. So no rooms there. Also the dutch are not kind enough to issue on arrival visas. Would atleast have roamed about Amsterdam (Maybe would have ended up unknowingly getting hash into the country, but what the hell) So I end up with 16 hours of random roaming about the airport. Some 50 odd chinese janta also end up doing the same thing. End up dozing of on one of the reclining chairs hearing "Jig-a ,Mayo,Nihao-Ma" all around me.

Next morning get up and have breakfast and catch the bloody flight back. End up, sitting next to geriatric old woman who tells all her life's woes in a confessional and finally land in Bombay

Fun.

Can someone tell me the time?

So I experienced my first time shift. No, I wasnt moving at nearly the speed of light. Nor did I drop through a worm hole. Just the average twice in a year shift in time practised by most of the world for daylight savings.

It does screw about with your mind. I was actually up when the clocks shifted last saturday at 3AM. Was reading The Fountainhead. Just glanced at the clock on the toolbar. It was showing 4:05AM. I was sitting there scratching my head wondering how the hell it was past 4. Fountainhead is good. But not that good. Did I sleep while I was reading? Then the starter finally kicks in. Lets goo check the time on the mobiile. It also shows 4:05. Find an analog device. Ah! The watch. There its still 3:05. Amazed that MS had built this into Windows. And it actually worked. Woohoo.

I ain;t likly to be here when they shift the clocks back. I am getting cheated of my time. I want justice.....

Khutta Rakshash and other tales

Romania is famous for being the land of Vlad the Impaler, I say its the land off crazy dogs and dog lovers. There are all these wolf-like strays running around the streets of Bucharest (Yes, I am currently there). Every bloody house in the neighbourhood has a Canine

The other day, we were thrown out of our room for a couple of hours as there was supposed to be some meeting there. So me and and a few other people here went out for a little walk about. The random walking took us into this residential street. Quaint houses with small gardens and all that. Slowly the howling begins. However in the two weeks I have been here, I have got used to this. So we just continued walking up the street talking random crap. Towards the end of the street there is a fork off to the right, while there seems to be a left further up the road which should get us in the general direction we need to go. We stop for a moment at the fork pondering which way to go. After a few seconds we decide we'll go straight.

As soon as we step into the straight path, we here this HUGE roar two feet from us across the wall. All of us are jumping out of our skins and make for the fork as fast as we can. Turning around we see this massive outline of a dog on the other side of a two metre high wall.

Must have been a St Bernard... or as one of the other chaps put it ", Khutta kya? Woh to Khutta Rakshash ta."

The basic plotline for the next Stephen King novel? Maybe.

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The other night after leaving work late we went to tram stop across the road hoping to catch the last tram home. Waiting there in the freezing cold, a puppy comes up and starts roaming about in the general vicinity of my legs. After waiting some 10 mins we decide to go cross the road to get a cab. The pup near my feet all this while. So we cross the road and wait. I look down and who is to be seen there but the same pup. Shoo it away and it goes scurrying off across the road in between all the cars. Two minutes later its back near me and just refuses to move till we get into the cab and are on our way.

What is it? Do I smell like bacon or something. Looks like I finally need to get some deo.

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