Life of S ~ The Russian Roulette ... Vol. III

continued from here...

By the time S managed to get some sleep, a good 10 hours had passed by on the airport. His watch was ticking, but every minute seemed like an hour. His laptop batery was dead, and his IPod battery had one leg in the grave.

It was only a matter of time that S realized that every person in the room was a respectable person. Contrary to his initial thoughts, they all turned out to be really nice people, and time started flying by as we tried to make conversation in the most traditional sign language that existed way back in time. It was funny, and yet amazing, that in-spite of all the odds, we managed to express ourselves. During one such conversation, one of the English speaking guys from Kazakasthan came up to me and asked from which country I was. The moment I proudly said India, he and the Uzbek guy standing next to him entered a level of excitement. The first words that came from their mouth were…”AMITABH BACHCHAN”. Kewl…so here we had a personality more widely known than the President of US. “Shahrukh Khan, Hritik Roshan, Salman Khan” were the next few things about India that they knew. And then he said, “the father of Indian cinema Raj Kapoor” and started singing, “Awaara hoon, Awaara hoon..”. His knowledge of India amused me. Interestingly, a little while earlier, one of the Ethiopian gals was singing “Kuch Kuch Hota hai…”. I never had an idea that Indian cinema was so popular across the globe. Infact, she even looked at my hair in the most fascinating and amusing way. She later offered me a deal in which she would take my hair and in exchange would give me her curly brown hair which I could never imagine on my head. I guess she had never seen such hair back home, where guys are either bald or have really small hair or funny looking curly hair and gals are not much better off. It was funny how people could think of such things at such critical moments.

Another interesting moment was when our own version of Bill Gates was trying to tell her not to talk any longer or all the credit in his phone would run into negative, and she reacted by punching him in the tummy in a manner similar to Laila Ali. My goodness, I would never dare to mess with an African gal in life, they could be dangerous. Two Egyptian guys were asking me to tell them about elephants, as they had never seen one in their life. India had always managed to amuse people in history. Here it was nothing new. People were all over the place and the chaos never died down till fatigue started getting the better of us one-by-one and each was falling prey to it and dozed off in the little place we had in that room. The public phone was also soon switched off and there was pin-drop silence, as would be expected in a court room during the hearings. Our contacts to the outside world were limited as it is, and now we were totally cut-off. This we were unaware of, and only realized it in the morning when we woke up expecting calls from all corners of the world, only to our disappointment.

During these light moments, there were other tense moments when we saw new people coming in and they seemed as upset as we were, when we had entered the SPECIAL ROOM. One gal from some African country even broke down to tears. We all did our little share of trying to cheer her up by talking to her. Some guys would start kicking chairs when they entered the room. I could understand their frustration but preferred to stay away from such people. Each time the door opened, all of us would run to the officer and try to explain our problems. My questions had the same old standard answer, “No speak English.” Damn…could you not get a peson who could speak English!!! I finally found a way out…a translator. The Kazak guy could speak both English (not the best person who could, nevertheless he could in bits and pieces) and Russian (although a different dialect which was spoken in his country back home with basic Russian words). He was my savior; he explained the whole situation to them and me. But it was all in vain as they would not bother to answer any of my questions that night and only said that we would talk again in the morning at 9AM, when the offices in the city opened. Sleep was the best, or rather the only, thing I could do and soon the night passed by, with me hoping for a better day ahead. I was still optimistic thinking to myself that in the worst case, I would have to stay there for 3 days and take the flight back home as per schedule. So I slept with some peace of mind thinking things would be solved in the morning. I had no choice left but to wait till 9AM.

to be continued...

Utterly Butterly Delicious...

What does the title line remind you of???? Try singing it.....!!!!

Remember the ads on TV...Utterly Butterly Delicious...AMUL!!!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAZRLGukV4A

I stumbled across this video on YouTube. And it struck me...how that tune used to be so famous when I was a kid...And then I started hunting for some of the other ads...whose tunes I remembered. The companies and the products in these ads were remembered because of the tunes that were associated with them...So I decided to compile some of them here...

1) Kya swaad hai...zindagi main...

YES!!!! The delicious Cadbury's chocolate..!!!! From Dairy Milk to Fruit & Nut...Simply Ummmmm...... And who can forget the famous song!!!! Here are a couple of those famous ads...





I specially love the cricket one..!!! I remember how the girl dancing on the field used to really crack me up!!!!


2) I would probably place the following tune right on the top of the list!!!! Every Indian knows this one..!!! The la...la la la laaaa..... the water fall...the pretty girl in a skimpy dress....sighhhhhhh!!! ladies and gentlemen...it's Liril...




3) And the cutest one of them all...the sweet lil kid...who only wants a lil attention...and loads of jalebis!!!!!! Yes...dhara dhara...shudh dhara...(you would have to turn up your volume a lil bit for this one I think...)



4) Suffering from a sore throat??? What did your mom tell you to do??? Vicks ki goli lo...khich khich door karo..!!!! Can never forget this one!!




5) Guess what has swaad (taste) and shakti (strength)!!! think think...



Yes!! Swaad bhare...Shakti bhare..!! Parle G!!!!

6) This company had the most classic tune of all!!! I really love this tune..!!! And they still it in their ads!!!! The bottom add is a new one...with Rani Mukherjee looking absolutely mind blowing..!!!! Times change... but the Titan tune is time less...






I really miss those ads!!!! There were a bunch of others...like coffee bite...ajanta clocks...bajaj...and few others I can't remember...The tunes remind me of a time long gone...Just hearing that music was enough to tell me which advertisement was up on TV... In recent days...the only one I really liked was Rehman's magical tune for Airtel...

Life of S ~ The Russian Roulette ... Vol. II

Continued from here...

I realized the weird atmosphere in the room and turned around to make my way out of there, only to realize that the door had been locked. I was in a small room which could well be considered as the prison in the airport. It seemed as if we were all convicts and had committed an inexcusable crime. The lot included people from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia, and many more countries that I didn’t get to ask or find out. Some of the people had been held here for one week, others for two-three days. I only wondered how long I was going to stay here.

It seemed as if the ‘Third World Summit” was taking place at the Domededovo Airport in Moscow. Initially I was a little upset and worried at the whole situation. But amidst all this chaos, I found that the people here were talking to each other, laughing and trying to motivate each other. None of them knew why they were here, and all of them knew that it was only a matter of time before they would be deported back to their respective countries. I was learning so much about the ways of life and about the positive attitude towards life that they talk about in B-schools. Interestingly, none of these people have ever been to any such school but they knew all about it. I was one among the 4 people who spoke English. The others knew only one sentence in English “No speak English”. Wow!!! Now I had to pass my time with a group of people whom I had no other way of conversing with, other than the primitive way of hand signs. But I was learning how to do it. And at the same time I was learning about the different cultures across the world in a very different way.

It was about an hour before I realized that someone there had a cell phone and was actually charging $5 for one call. Talk about ideas!!!! What a way to make money while sitting in airport-prison. That was really innovative. I felt like punching him in the face, but at the time he was my only savior. Later I realized that neither the phone, nor the sim card in it was his. It was the belonging of a lady and this gentleman was calling his friend sitting outside the airport to fill credit in that number. How innovative!!! He was neither Bill Gates nor Dhirubhai Ambani. But he had the presence of mind to think of doing business even in such a situation. Not to my surprise, there was a waiting queue for making calls and I had to wait for my turn. I needed the phone badly as it was getting late to make calls to India and everyone would soon be sleeping. As I got my turn, he said he didn’t have change for a $20 bill that I had. So I had to get $10 credited considering the situation. Nevertheless, money was not as important to me as getting out of the mess I was in.

Then I called up my friend/Mr Dependable, SP, and explained to him the whole situation. I told him to call whomever was required and to get me out of the bloody mess. I knew he would do something and real quick. I also asked him to get back to me on the same number ASAP and so he did. I still remember, every time the phone rang, every person in the room would run towards it, expecting it to be their call. It was like a lottery being called and every person waiting for their name to be called. Within an hour, things had started escalating to the right people in my company and I had also received a call from Gerardo, the Recruiting Manager for Asia, the same gentleman who had taken my interview and recruited me. Only to my shock, the lady whose phone was being used all this while was upset with everyone using her phone and she finally took it back and switched it off once most of us had fallen asleep. Hungry and tired, I tried to catch up on sleep using my laptop as a pillow and my NorthFace jacket as a blanket, sleeping on the ground. This was nothing very new though for me, as I had already done such things in the pick-up’s when we would go for jobs on the rigs. Nevertherless, the situation was definitely one that was new to all of us.

to be continued...

LIfe of S ~ The Russian Roulette

Ok...so here's the thing. I got really bored of blogging down too much stuff about S (actually, I am pissed of that he hasn't come down to visit me and so I am cutting short his blog coverage). So now I am only gonna focus on some really interesting stuff. And nothing could get better than this. Our dear friend S had to go to Moscow for official work. But as it turned out, his experience was no less than playing the dangerous game of Russian Roulette.

I remember standing in the check-in line at the Dubai International Airport. I was to board a flight to Moscow, where I was being sent for some official work. Little did I know then, that the day ahead of me was going to be one, that would leave memories for a lifetime. A harrowing experience awaited me, one which I would not like to go through again in my life.

As I waited for the flight, I found a place to hook up my laptop and browse the net. I was so absorbed surfing, that I nearly missed the final boarding call for the flight to Moscow (infact, 2 of my friends actually missed a flight once, cause they were too busy facebooking!!!!). I rushed to the gate where I saw an Indian lady welcoming the passengers. She was surprised to know that I was going for work purposes to Moscow. Generally, people as young as me went to Russia to study, and I was an aberration (that word defines S completely). As I entered the flight, the excitement inside me was beyond expression. In my knowledge, the relationship between India and Russia was famous since the times of legendary Raj Kapoor, and so I was really looking forward to this trip. I slept for most of the flight, and when my eyes opened, we were landing at Moscow. The snow outside took me back in memory lane, to the wonderful time I spent in Canada, a few months back.

As I stepped off the plane, the excitement inside me kept growing. All I could think of was Vodka and Women (sounds like the title of of a Russian history text!!), Russia’s biggest "assets" (pun intended). However, as I moved to the passport control with all my documents, I felt the customs inspector giving me the weirdest of looks. In the little English he knew, he asked me to take off my cap (used to hide the receding hairline) and took a closer look at me. He then called another inspector, who was the most inhuman person that I was to see for some time. He took me to a seating area and was trying to be nice by asking me to take a seat and give him reasons for my stay. I was not alone in this exercise, as I found an aged Pakistani businessman and two African gals on adjacent seats. After the questions, he told me to wait.

As time passed by, we kept waiting for him. Finally he was back after 2 hrs. As I explained to him about the company I work for, and my purpose for this short visit, he kept asking me more questions. He then asked me for the contract I had signed with the company, something I never expected to be asked for, in my wildest dreams (and his dreams are pretty wild, believe me). I told him that it was in my check-in baggage, and that I had other documents most of which were in my laptop. If I could open my laptop, I could show him everything he wanted. However, he wanted it all in print. It amazed me that in this hi-tech world of computers, why would one ever carry unnecessary documents and waste paper (score one for Al Gore). He then checked my ticket and hotel bookings and confirmed the same with the hotel I was to stay in. As there was nothing wrong with that, he chose to conveniently ignore it and kept telling me that I should also forget about that. He then wanted the telephone number of the company and contacts of people I was to meet here. So I produced all the required details and told him that there should be a company executive waiting outside for me. But all such details were of least interest to him. I guess it suited him that it was a Sunday and that the offices in Moscow were closed.

He went away to contact the people whose information I had provided, and came back after an hour and a half. He had this sense of achievement on his face and I assumed that he had managed to contact the people and I would be allowed to leave soon. Only to my disappointment, I learned that there was no person he could contact. Also, he said that there was no one waiting for me outside the airport. Of course that was bound to happen. I would never expect someone to wait for me four hours after the flight has landed. I tried explaining this to him, but he couldn’t care less. I was really frustrated. I thought that may be he couldn’t understand me properly and asked if I could speak to his senior officer. That must have hurt his ego and could well be my biggest blunder of the day. As they say, “when time doesn’t go your way, nothing seems to go well”. It was all getting really messed up.

He then asked me to follow him. The wicked smile on his face sent jitters down my spine. He told me that they had a SPECIAL ROOM for me to wait in. The waiting period was indefinite and I would have to wait for the morning when he would contact my company personals. I requested him to let me try calling my company people back in India to see if they could do something or even if I could access the Internet to send emails about the chaos. He had a standard answer to all my requests and questions, “I’m sorry! I can't help you”. I told him that we never treat anyone like this if they come to India. To this statement he replied, “India doesn’t have problems like Russia” (umm...excuse me....have u been to India????). It just seemed as if he never wanted to help me. In any case, we reached the waiting room and he opened the door with a set of keys hanging around his neck. It seemed weird that a waiting room was kept locked. But I kept my questions to myself for a change (u see...nothing's impossible...even S can keep his mouth shut).

As I entered this room, I saw smoke all over, and through the smoke I saw about 20-25 people of different nationalities talking to each other. As I was entering, all their eyes were on me and I’m sure the thoughts passing through their heads was the same, “HERE COMES ANOTHER ONE”.

to be continued...