Airport Transit

It is easier to cross the city of Madurai from One end to another by foot, than it is to transit from One terminal or a Gate in an Airport to Another. So, in a 24 hour Flight journey from US to India, it is actually difficult to transit than sit and burn your ass off inside the aircraft.

The amount of effort required for the travel is governed by the following equation:

E = F + iT

Where E is the Total Effort for Travel. F is the effort required to fly in the aircraft. T is the unknown amount of effort required to walk from one Terminal to another. “i” is the ego in you that tells that “I can definitely do this” and it gets reduced from “This is a piece of cake” feeling to “Holy shit! I am completely screwed” feeling.

The above equation is valid only for those who travel alone. For all those who travel with family (especially kids or 1 kid who can do stuff that 2 kids do) the equation grows to the power. The modified equation is:

E = (F + iT)^n

Where ‘n’ is the feels like factor of number of kids ( and not the actual number of kids). So you may have only 1 kid but that kid might put on a nice airtime travel show equivalent to 3 kids. In this case your n is not 1 but 3. Usually if you have 1 kid, n is always greater than 1. But if you have a kid which yields a value of n < 1, I need to borrow your kid to brush off some of its characteristics to mine. Call me … Seriously!

The following are the challenges of Airport Transit: (what, you thought it ended with the equation?)

1. First of all, Good luck with getting down from the aircraft. The moment the seat belt sign is off there will be a race as to who will get up first, get their gear and head to the aircraft exit. It doesn’t matter that it takes at least 30 seconds for the door in the aircraft to open up to the exit, everyone including the folks at the last row will be up on their feet. If you feel you may not be able to compete with them, just sit back and be the last one to be out. If you think you can, you should have prior experience in Military, American Football and Wrestling, in order to succeed.

Note: If you try to accidentally push the guy behind you in the aisle, you might be able to see a beautiful sight of falling Human Dominoes. But don’t try that, you cannot run far off from the victims.

2. Let’s assume you got off from the aircraft in One piece ( 2 pieces if you are carrying a small handbag or a laptop bag, 10 pieces if you have a kid). The trick now will be to find the sign board that says “GATE C25 with an upper arrow mark”. After skimming through a crowd of people wandering the airport, security staff, airport staff, duty free shops, gorgeous European women you can finally spot something close – GATES C with a upper arrow.

NOTE: The GATES C sign arrow mark does not in anyway mean that your gate is right around the corner. I think they should intensify the arrow mark or color it to show how far your Gate is.

3. You will now start your transit locomotion by Walk, then get on an elevator to go one level down. From there you will walk a long way by foot, by flat escalator, by foot again, by flat escalator again and then finally you will get another elevator to go one level up. It is not over yet, You will have to now Catch a train because Gates C is in another terminal. All this while you will keep seeing the very same “GATES C with an Arrow Mark” board.

4. As soon as you get off the train in another terminal, repeat Step 3. It will seem like you are going towards the horizon, it actually is so! But don’t get too excited when you start seeing GATES C10-25 sign board with Arrow mark. You may still need to do 30% of step 3 before you reach your final destination. Back up 3 Gates, in case you want to Hit the Restroom.

I wish Airports were like Madurai Airport. There is only one Gate, you walk through that Gate you will be inside the airport and walk the other way you will be outside the airport. Humans love to make things complicated.

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You There?

Vishesh, the Swami Smileyananda has tagged me to do a Tag of his own called Smiley Tag. The objective is to spread the smile and I took it literally by doing a post based on Smileys. I actually had done this post sometime back and kept it in draft for a long time. I waited for the right moment, but completely forgot about this post until now. I think It was meant to be posted for Vishesh’s Tag.

When people Instant Message you at work with a “yt” which means “You There?”, the way someone answers to that question can tell a lot about the situation. Let’s see what they are:

HAPPY STATE

“yt”

“Yes, what’s up! “

- A descriptive answer followed by a smiley. This respondent had a good tasty lunch and probably got a pat in the back from the boss or got a raise or going out for a fun party in the evening. He is just happy about something and he is much obliged to answer your questions.

I CAN ANSWER YOU

“yt”

“Yes, What’s up!”

- The person is not really in a good mood, but can take a few questions from the requester. This person is vulnerable to spiral down to Case 3 if not handled properly.

BUSY NOW, THIS BETTER BE SERIOUS

“yt”

“Yes!”

- For “yt” all I can say is I can acknowledge my presence. If you are planning on asking any questions for help, it better be serious. Don’t say “I need to borrow a post it, can I come to your desk”, because these questions can spiral him down to Case 4.

CRISIS, NO MORE QUESTIONS

“yt”

“s”

- Just one letter abbreviation of Yes. That’s it – s. The person is busy doing a lot of other things. It is really not advisable to ask anymore questions to the person unless you are the boss or boss’s boss and so on. Simply acknowledge his presence and move away, other wise you will push the person to Case 5.

BUSY WORKING MY A** OFF

“yt”

- The person doesn’t respond. He/She simply turns on the busy indicator on the Instant message client indirecly indicating to scram and not to bother. Do not dare to walk to this person’s cube, wait for the person to get back to atleast Case 3.

A Comic with all of the above emotions of “You there!”

Of course this applies only at work and not for Gtalk and Yahoo IM clients

If you like to spread the Smile, go ahead and take this as a Tag and do your own post that will make people Smile

Pictures from: www.wikimedia.org

Randomize(Things) * 25

Amrutha has tagged me to write 25 Random things about me.

What is Random? Is it something that is not in particular, that doesn’t belong to a category, something that you just pick with no reason associated with it?

But here is a truth, That particular thing is a Random thing only until you pick it. But the moment you pick it, you have it in your hand and you know what it is and you know how to categorize it. A Random thing that you picked is not Random anymore. It is sort of like Quantum Physics.

The Random thing that you are yet to pick can be anything from Freedom to Boredom, but the moment you pick it, you will be able to see that it is your Kingdom. You have a specific thing in hand now, not a Random thing.

Anyways, Here are 25 Random things from my life which became specific after I picked.

1. As a Kid, I once tried to look under the Godrej Bero (Armoire) and got my head stuck there.

2. Once, when my uncle was sitting in the living room, he pulled my head out, from under the Godrej Bero. Somehow I can relate this with point 1.

3. I used to be afraid of Rats, that my Grandma used that fear of mine to feed me (Not with Rats, but Just Food, Not Rat Food, but Human Food)

4. In those days, a candy used to cost 5 Paise or 10 Paise. That became my salary if I help out on a chore at home.

5. The First Rajinikanth Movie that I ever saw and liked was “Murattu Kaalai”.

6. The First Kamal Hassan Movie that I really liked was “Vikram”.

7. I used to make cricket ball out of a small stone and wrapping Paper on top of it, very tightly.

8. I used to play cricket on the terrace of our house with my homemade Paper ball. The ball was very durable until you hit that out of the terrace into the ditch in the road.

9. I once went into a dreamless deep sleep state when I was alone in the house. Calling bell, Violent shouts and Knocks on the door didn’t wake me up. People had to break in and wake me up. As a prize for doing this, I was given coffee.

10. I used to be among the shortest in school, but somehow I became relatively taller in College.

11. The first Six I hit was in my 6th Std, No one could believe I was capable of hitting Six, including me.

12. I learnt to dance from my Younger brother, who was a Natural dancer.

13. I wanted a Younger Sister who I was going to name as Kavitha. I consider all the Kavitha’s that I come across in my life as my Younger sister, except the older ones.

14. I was a Car Crazy Kid. I used to have a Sack full of Toys that were variety of cars.

15. I have the fear of Unknown. I am beating this fear by trying to know as much as I can.

16. When I used to live alone as a Bachelor, the moment there is a Power cut at night I used to come out of the house and sit in the balcony, unless I am in deep sleep.

17. I learnt the Guitar for 3 months and then quit. I still have the wish to learn to play someday.

18. I once won an impromptu competition to sit still for 1hour in school during Yoga Class. I have no idea how I did that, because I am unable to do that now!

19. My First Crush was when I was in 12th std, over a 11th std girl.

20. My Second crush was when I crushed a lemon with my bare hands for making Lemon Rice as a Bachelor.

21. My First car was a Fiat Palio which I sold before coming to US.

22. My First cell phone was an Ericsson world phone, which I lost in an Autorickshaw in Bangalore.

23. My First jeans was a local branded jeans named – Hara.

24. This blog is my second innings.

25. I found my Humor sense in this blog.

If I equate 1 Random thing to 1 year of my age, I am still left out with 5 years. Instead of writing 5 more things, I will just tag 5 people whose blog I read, but I don’t have them in my blogroll yet, because I am terribly lazy!

They are – Gauri, Chutneycase, Anu Ramakrishnan, Inbavalli, Kavi.

10 Things you should know about 10 Things

If there is a topic then there must be an article with 10 things on that topic. Since this itself is a topic, I am going to write 10 things you should know about all these 10 things articles.

1. There are not actually 10 things to say, it may actually be 7 or 8 but to make it a round number the author rephrases a couple of them and makes the count to 10. Or he writes a classic last one – “10. There is no 10th thing!”

2. The title is not written first. The author keeps writing whatever comes to his minds and then writes the final number in the title. That is why we have a non standard 7 habits, 5 things, 10 steps etc.

3. Readers attention span is very important. So the author will make sure he doesn’t exceed beyond 13 points. 13 is the unlucky stop point number. Any more number of points he is going to get with the article, there are high chances that it will get converted into a book.

4. If it was written as a book, it will be publicized as the NYTimes #1 Best seller with a round, starry edged, fluorescent green sticker on top of it. No such thing will be done to the blog article. Heck, it won’t even make it to the WordPress front page. I mean take this one for example.

5. If it is published as a book, the front cover will always have the 3/4 portrait of the author standing at about 30 degrees to the side, arms folded, dressed in a blazer with a silly grin on his face.

6. Women don’t write 10 things article or the book. They just have too many things to say to be written in One article or One book. So they just have a TV show by their name like Oprah Winfrey show, Suze Orman Show, Rachel Ray show, with the word “Show” following their names, even though every one knows that it is a TV show!

7. This is the step the author finds out that there is no clear direction in his article and he cannot give a proper meaningful name for it. He will simply choose to name it as “10 things You should know about …”. Also, You will notice that Point number 8 will be missing.

8. This point is supposed to be missing. So you should not be reading this. No stop, stop! Don’t read it. Come on, This point is hidden! You are not supposed to read it, argh!!!!

9. There is no 10th thing. No Really, I mean it. I am going to stop at point 9.

10. Oh what the Heck! There are actually 11 things about the “10 things” articles.

11. Point no. 10 was not actually needed and I could have simply written Point 11 as Point 10. But, I just added it to show how clever I am. So, In essence, There is not really a 11th thing.

There, if you always keep all of these 10 or 11 things (with the 8th point missing) in your mind, you will be able to judge what those 10 things books are.

A “10 things to know about” article or book never goes complete without written testimonials of experts. Hence, I had an imaginary conversation with my fellow bloggers and I am coming up with their testimonials on this Article:

Anshul @ Brainstuck: (Scratches Head) WTF, 10 things about 10 things Article! (Scratches Head again!)

KrishAshok: This article is very inspiring it will definitely make me write 10 things to know about Jalsa and Jilpa.

Maxdavinci: There is only one thing that is true in this world – Dappankuthu. Everything else is written in this article.

Nikhil: The author is a very nice fellow. He bought me 10 beers, one for each thing.

Vishesh:  (and then when asked to elaborate) LOL

Sakhi: There is Fiction and then there is true story. This one is neither!

Twisted DNA: Just put on your bluetooth headset and read this aloud, no one will even notice, these sexy supple white 10 things.

Rads: Yay! I mean Yay!

The Philosophy behind Recession

This is most probably what is going on everyone’s mind right now. “A Recession! Why God Why!”.

Why should this happen to us! There are already a lot of people who are very poor and struggle for even a single meal every day or for weeks, and now we have people losing jobs. The world is now consisting more and more of hungry and jobless people. Even those who are fortunate enough to have jobs are upset because their buddy, who was working with them for 10 years is no longer there with them.

Why is this all happening and what exactly is the lesson behind the recession.

From an economists point of view one would point to unwise business strategies as the reason and the lesson is to spend wisely from here on.

But if we think deeper, there is actually more of a philosophy to be learnt from this recession than just economics.

The Object of Illusion.

Everything that is materialistic exists because we need it, we want it, we lust for it. The electronics company makes 50,000 mp3 players because there are atleast 50,000 people who want it. But now due to recession there are probably only 30,000 people who are looking to buy these devices. A common man looks at this as a bad thing because it reduces the circulation of money. But think further. What if there is not one single person, ready to buy mp3 players, not because they are cutting on spending, but because they have given up the lust for such a device.

MP3 players will no longer exist.

Consider the house that you bought a few years back for $200,000 in a quite residential area. It was a beautiful house and you thought that it was definitely worth 200 grand and will probably be worth more in the future. But with this downturn you just discovered your house is worth much less. So how much is your house really worth? Here is the answer in 2 points that is very difficult to digest:

1. Your house is only worth how much a buyer is willing to pay for it and it can also be just ONE DOLLAR!

2. If there are no buyers willing to buy, your house is not worth anything in terms of money.

But here is an interesting thing, Your house is worth all of it for the memories and good times that you have there. So doesn’t this mean that your house being worth $200K was just an illusion? You see, that is why our ancestors were not willing to sell their homes not because they are attached to the monetary worth of it, but because of the memories and good times they had there.

The concept of money that we have is just an illusion!

I am not asking you to give away all your belongings and become a saint, all I am telling is if you are able to realize that the money that we made is just an illusion, you will no longer need to become a saint, you will already be in the path of one. This is easier said than done. It is a Journey into the reality and It won’t be easy but the only way to see it, will be to take up the ride, and travel, perhaps with rest stops.

Everything Belongs to Earth.

Now that we have identified money is an illusion, let’s go back to our house. How was that built? Did God build your house as a gift to your good work? Nope! Your house is just a complex physical and chemical composition of Mother earth that a stranger built it for you in exchange to an illusionary object called money. So the house is just actually Earth! It belongs to Earth! You just bought an illusionary object with an illusionary concept called Money. What kind of an illusion is this! The one that will completely blind us I guess.

Again, I am not asking you to sell your house or not buy any house in the future or give it away and live in caves. If you are able to think and realize that everything you own, including your own body ultimately belongs to Mother nature, Mother Earth to be specific, then it doesn’t matter if you have a house or not. Why do we struggle for it then, when the whole of Earth naturally belongs to us? If you are willing to accept this idea, then you are ready to take up this journey upon you.

A Living example of this would be Bill Gates. He is the richest and now he gives away his wealth and the world is becoming better because he has probably realized this. He has taken up the Journey of the real life, after completing his illusionary life. Bill Gates was born to be Bill Gates. When you realize it, you will also know that you were born to be you. You don’t have to struggle to become like Bill Gates, You just need to be you.

You will now see Life from a completely different perspective.

You will now understand that Recession is just another illusionary state created from things that were already an illusion. You will have a lot of questions, but they will be answered. Time has the answers for everything. When time answers you, your twitter messages will begin to look like mine

Of course, you will not be able to think of any of these without your survival. Once you take care of your survival needs and once you are able to take care of your survival needs as you go, your journey will be much more smoother. This is exactly why we donate goods to those who don’t have. We are helping them survive and think beyond survival.

In Indian customs, the idea of giving food and water to guests is to satisfy their survival needs. Once their survival needs are taken care of, they will be able to see the things around them beyond all illusions.

All of this is just my humble opinion. Your thoughts are welcome in the comments.

The Purpose of Life is to undertake this journey of breaking out of all these illusions.