The Popular Gita 'Saram' is dubious

Yes, I sound controversial and blasphemous. However, on the contrary, I find it blasphemous that Hindu society has been tolerating and worse promoting a very false and unrelated chunk of text as the essence of its holiest scripture. I am surprised that our defenders of Hinduism, who make a huge cry when Hindu Gods and Godesses feature in most unlikely of places, and all the acharyas and babas turn a blind eye to gross misrepresentation. Interstingly, the authour of this spam is unknown.

Most of us would have heard the story of the school kid who encounters a question about a cow whereas he has studied about a coconut tree. So he solves the problem by writing a paragraph on coconut tree and concludes with "the cow can be tied to this tree". This is Gita 'Saram' is not very different from this story.

Ironically, in an introductory verse on Bhagavad gita, the Upanishads are compared to a cow and the Bhagavad Gita as the milk from that cow, essentially meaning that Gita itself is an essence. So condensing this essence into a page is essentially an overkill. No wonder, when Sri Ramana Maharishi was requested by one of his disciples Sri Subbramiah, the sage could not condense it to less than 42 stanzas out of the original 700.

Being the summary of all the Upanishads, it wouldn't be wrong to say that Bhagavad Gita can be summarised into one or other of the Upanishadic Mahavakyas:
(1) Prajnanam Brahma - Consciousness is Brahman
(2) Aham Brahmasmi - I am Brahman
(3) Tat Tvam Asi - Thou Art That
(4) Ayam Atma Brahma - This Self is Brahman.

In simple terms, each living being is inherently Divine or Amritasya PutrAh in the language of Upanishads - "Children of Immortality". Gita sets out to set a path whereby a human being can shed his ignorance and realise the Divinity in him/her.

Having refuted the famous Geeta "Saaram" it becomes my responsiblity to strive to fill the void with a more valid one lest the vacuum is filled by some fake.

My Version of Gita Saram

"The body is mortal the soul is immortal. You are not the body but the Immortal soul. I am that Self dwelling in the hearts of all beings. I m the beginning, the middle and also the end of all belings.

Do your duty unbothered about its outcome - success or failure, without any attachment and dedicating the actions to ME. Such actions bring self purification and the person attains steady peace.

I Personally fulfill the personal needs and welfare of all the devotees who workship me and think of me singlemindly and constantly united with me.

When a man dwells in his mind on the object of sense, attachment to them is produced. From attachment springs desire and from desire comes anger. From anger arises bewilderment, from bewilderment loss of memory; and from loss of memory, the destruction of intelligence and from the destruction of intelligence he perishes.

The one whose mind is controlled and has an equal vision sees his own Self as abiding in all beings and all beings in himSelf.

The one who is full of faith, has all his senses controlled, is exclusively engaged in spiritual practices and who is free from desires, fear and anger, Realises the Divinity in him."

I hope I have covered the essence of Bhagavad Gita, thanks in turn to Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi's Gita Saram (a compilation of 42 important verses from Gita). My apologies for any errors. Comments from learned people for improving this are most welcome.

-Sri KrishnarpaNam Astu

Dare say "YES" to these questions

One of the funny questions in US D-160 application for a Visa is:

Do you seek to engage in terrorist activities while in the United States or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities?

Obviously I answered No. Well, even a hardened terrorist will not answer it yes.

Let me run my imagination a little wild. In general, if one answers yes to a question (as in have you attended college) the next one will be if yes, give details of year, college and course.

So, back to terrorist question. If you answered yes, I wouldn't be surprised if I were asked the following details as well:

Terrorist attack planned: __________________

Place: _________________________

Date: (mm/dd/yyyy) ________________

Scale in terms of Causalities ______________________

Here is a complete list of similar questions from the application:

• Are you coming to the United States to engage in prostitution or unlawful commercialized vice or have you been engaged in prostitution or procuring prostitutes within the past 10 years?
• Have you ever been involved in, or do you seek to engage in, money laundering?
• Do you have a mental or physical disorder that poses or is likely to pose a threat to the safety or welfare of yourself or others?
• Do you seek to engage in espionage, sabotage, export control violations, or any other illegal activity while in the United States?
• Have you, while serving as a government official, been responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom?
• Have you committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in extrajudicial killings, political killings, or other acts of violence
• Have you ever committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in torture?
• Have you ever ordered, incited, committed, assisted, or otherwise participated in genocide?
• Have you ever or do you intend to provide financial assistance or other support to terrorists or terrorist organizations?

What is the objective of such questions when sane criminal, let alone an ordinary applicant is going to answer YES.

Or, is it meant to provide some comic relief to the otherwise long and boring experience of online application process?

Reliance Customer Care as applied to a Restaurant

I am sick of the Reliance Internet connection and their customer care. You ask for something, they come up with some weird explanation and if you try to correct it, they respond with a perfect solution to a non-issue.

I need to vent out my frustration. I hope I can do it fruitfully in this way. I don't mind if Reliance sues me, because I have their email transcripts, which are simple, straight forward and simple enough to make a 3 year old to roll on the floor laughing.

Ok, here goes the joke. Reliance manages a flashy restaurant with inflated rates, of course.

Customer: My coffee is cold.

Reliance: Sorry for the inconvenience, our Service team will respond to you in 5 minutes.

After some time

Reliance: Sir, it is our policy to offer fruit juices in cold condition.

Customer: Fruit juice??? My coffee is cold.

After some more time:

Reliance: Sir, with respect to your complaint on coffee, we regret to tell you that we cannot offer you fruit juice when you had asked for coffee

Customer: (Frustrated and obviously angry): I am not asking for fruit juice. My coffee is cold. I wanted it hot.

Reliance: We have taken your request for hot Bondas to go with your coffee and will serve them in a few minutes.

The Flight to Edmonton

Long flights in Economy class are not something to cheer about. Nevertheless, I do enjoy them given the vivid experiences and the various types of people I get to interact in the time. These more than nullify the tiresome, leg aching, back breaking and noisy journey.

Pre-boarding

The travel to airport took hardly an hour from Perambur and surprisingly there wasn't the usual crowd of young people going to obscure places in US, landing down in the airport with van loads of family members to see them off. Check in did not take much time too. In no time, I cleared the immigration and security.

The crowd inside the boarding area was mostly tourists and middle aged, spectacled, bald business travellers and there was a very visible drop in the number of youngsters and young mothers towing along their toddlers to join their husbands who got them a H1 visa. Exceptions being a tall pretty girl with her right nose pierced walking up and down to the mobile charging point to check her mobile, a group of three Sinhalese boys speaking something that was incomprehensible to me, and a mother with a toddler who kept pestering her with his curiosity. Perhaps, these are the visible signs of recession in US and global economic downturn. And that explains why given such a short notice the travel agent was able to throw up more options and better prices this time, while last year with a little longer notice period, I could not get better deals.

On board

Inside the plane I was in for more surprises and disappointments. The plane was just half full. It seemed I did not have had to check in online and blocked a window seat. There were plenty of seats free. I settled down in my seat and captured a couple of planes through the window on my mobile. There was a middle aged businessman in the seat in front, a fat young lady in black flaunting her i-phone on the central column, a young gentleman behind me and a lone middle aged white man on the central column and same row as that mine.

As the plane took off and we settled for a nice flight. The cyclone Nisha sent ripples high on the sky and we were asked to put on our seatbelts as there would be turbulences. I was served a vegan dinner - uppma, sambar, fruit salad and some sweet. The entertainment on board was't that good - the selection of Tamil and Hindi songs and movies was horrible. One nice thing about Lufthansa flight from Chennai is that at 1:50 am, you get to read the day's Hindu newspaper when whole of Chennai is in their deep sleep. I started to read for another 2 hours. I targetted my body clock to my destination time i.e, MT and started to adapt my activities accordingly, which meant I should try to stay awake till atleast 5 am IST which is 4:30 pm there.

Sleep? Ah! that was when I noticed that people on the central 4 seated rows, mostly alone, had lifted up the arm rests and made a nice berth out of the spare pillows and were sound asleep. I felt so bad to have settled for the 2 seated side row of seats. I could not squeze myself in the 80 cm odd side row. But pulled out a few spare pillows and shawls from empty seats and made a decent bed before sleep took over me.

Frankfurt
The plane landed on a dark, cold and snowy Frankfurt. (I have been on this blog for a very long time.. need to finish it ....) This was unexpected, I am seeing Frankfurt in snow for the first time. So, prpbably Canada must be colder at this time of year. Since the transit was not long, I decided to fetch a coffee and settle down with a newspaper.

The cluster of gates 52-57 resembled a mini India with people from Indian cities transiting to places in North America and way back. I refreshed with a cup of coffee and searched my Gate and settled to read the newspaper. There was a tall gentleman with a Canadian accent, perhaps a staff of Air Canada, getting the gate ready for boarding and spreading an aura of helpfullness that every passer by went up to him with their little doubts about gates, flights etc. I thought of clarifying my doubts on whehter my luggage will be checked all the way to Edmonton or I should have to pull it at Calgary for customs. Did not want to disturb this gentleman and went up to another lady who stood without anything to do. Bad luck!! she knew nothing and she directed me to this genleman. ("Bad luck buddy.. more troubles for you").

Meanwhile, a black elderly gentleman who had approached him couple of times earlier looking for his gate came again, unable to locate his gate. and this airport staff helped him out again.. "hmm.. this guy has lots of patience"

I was overhearing a three people behind me chatting in Indian English. All of them, turn out to be a people heading to India from US. One of them an automobile engineer with a disgusting Indo-American accent apparently from Chennai and working in DiamlerChrysler, a girl and a guy from south Tamilnadu. The automobile engineer did most of the talking - his experience with Mercedes Benz manufacturing, popular automobiles, his views and solutions to the US recession. The waiting area for my gate was opened and I rushed in, positioned myself near the glasses. With still another 45 minutes to go, I opened up my laptop and settled to do write down the blog.

Frankfurt - Calgary
The flight was full, unlike the earlier one. A young man of Chinese descent occupied the seat near me. "Poor guy, I wonder how many times you are going to woken up from sleep during my frequent visits to the washrooms and for picking up drinks". There was nothing to see through the window, I made a poor selection again. The left side of the plane faced harsh sun for most part of the flight. The heat and light was so unbearable that all the windows had to be closed for most part of the flight. Sadly, the plane flew over the Greenland this time also, but it happened to be on the right side of the plane. (Poor me, given the rate at which the snow in Greenland is melting, I doubt if I can see it the next time I fly over it)

The lunch was served - special meals first. The Sikh family on the nearby row was served some steaming Indian vegetarian food. It tickled my nose and stomach and I waited eagerly for my special Vegan meal.

The flight attendant came up to me and apologised profoundly with a wide smile "I am sorry sir, we have run out of your special meal, you will have to choose between beef and chicken for lunch"

"What the heck? I fought with my travel agent for a special meal and this lady comes up to me and says I have to chose between chicken and beef"

"Nothing doing, I had booked a special meal and I cannot take nonvegetarain" I said.

"Ok, I will look into business class menu and see if I can bring something vegetarian"

Having said that she came up with a large tray with among other things a large circular china dish with a sort of bread soaked in a tomato, spinach and spices gravy. Needless to mention it tasted wonderful ("Hmm.. truely business class").

With nothing much to watch on the TV (to be frank overwhelmed by the options, and ended up wathing only the flight map). But, I did sneak watch some funny Jackie Chan movie twice, one on my neighbour's screen and another on the old lady's screen in the row in front.

During the second lunch, the same act repeated with the attendant asking if I wanted a "vegetarian" pasta or chicken. I checked if that pasta had eggs in it. She checked and said they do have it. I revolted, expecting the business class story to repeat (does this remind the woodcutter and the angel story?). She went to the pantry area and came up with a small (??) tray of what looked like tiny white beans (perhaps quinoa) and usual stuff. (the woodcutter cannot be always smart)

An hour before the flight began its final descent to Calgary, the vast, flat Saskatchewen province unfolded up, with its extraordinarily long roads with not a single curve in sight.

"So those jokes about its flatness and straight roads are true" I realised.

Odd enough, there was no sign of snow, given that Frankfurt was covered with snow. The display showed the temperature at destination as 9 deg. The only traces of snow was on the distant Rocky mountains on the horizon, that shone golden in the evening sun.

Last Leg - to Edmonton
The customs and immigration at Calgary were very friendly. There wasn't much crowd here unlike Toronto. There were minutes of tension collecting my luggage, a policeman with a dog caught up some box and piecred it open when the dog smelt something in it. I was worried if the dog will sniff my masala and all the powders in my luggage. Luckily, even as my bags came down the conveyor, he dragged the dog away saying "good job baby, lets move"

The first thing I did was to locate a Tim Hortons. Funnily enough it was difficult to locate it. There was a Starbucks, then Second Cup - all American, and it took a while till I found out the truely Canadian - Tim Hortons. Picked up a coffee and began by stay in Canada.

The airport was filled with youngsters selling some American Express / Aeroplan credit cards and promising airmiles on purchasing one. But none of them could answer if the current journey is in Aeroplan card.

The guy at the check in was quite friendly too, cracking a few PJs. As I waited for the flight onwards, the Sikh family who travelled with me, came to the same area. They are travelling to Edmonton too. There was an old lady, who immediately took up her notebook and started sketching a guy on the opposite row with a hat and a laptop. She had a great collection of such sketches of people she sketched at public places.. Amazing!!

Luckily, I got the front row in this little plane, a Bombardier Dash 8, but it happened to be aisle seat. I exchanged it for a window seat of a nice elderly gentleman.

The view from this little plane was fantastic, with a cruising altitude of around 5000 metres, even cars on the Queen Elizabeth Highway were visible. It was wonderful - lakes, woods, little towns. The flight finally touched down at Edmonton.

It was a pleasant 9 deg Celcius. I was the first person to get down the plane. I ran out towards the terminal without the coat on.

The rainy evening when traffic came to a standstill

The evening of 24th October 2008, DMK in a show of strength created a human chain supporting the cause of Tamilians in Srilanka, though the timing of the event and the coming general elections, does raise doubts about the sincerity towards the cause. Having cancelled the earlier event scheduled on 21st October, it had to go ahead this time even if it meant battering the heavy rains.

It did rain heavily today evening. But the human chain event went on as decided.

Result: The traffic came to a stand still from late evening till around 9:30 at night putting lakhs of people leaving for their hometowns for Deepavali into hardships and people returning home stranded on water logged roads for hours. Needless to say, MTC buses whoes services become unreliable during rains, were nowhere to be seen.

The photos were taken around Gemini flyover / Nungambakkam High Road area at 8:30 pm. The traffic on the side towards Tambaram has stopped

How and why I am an engineer?

Originally posted in a different blog of mine on Wednesday, November 28, 2007

For some odd reason, I never had any particular ambition while at school. Thanks to a few really good Maths teachers and Physics teachers at High School, I grew a good deal of interest in Science and Technology at a high school. Not to forget, my interest in opening up television sets, radio, calculators, other electronic items for the fun of it and / or repairing them. During my eighth to tenth standard, I had a group of friends who had similar interest in electronics and would make electronic items for fun and sale. So perhaps sub-consciously I had prepared myself for a career in Engineering.

My father was doing a business of raw materials for industries in Coimbatore. So names like KSB Pumps, ELGI, LMW, and other prominent industries in Coimbatore were quite familiar to us. During the long vacation after the tenth exams, I used to commute daily to Coimbatore with my father to his office for time pass and at times act like an assistant officer when he goes out. Then I had a dream of building that business once I am out of college.

But it is still amazes me how come I never thought of which group to take or even thought about the groups available in pre-graduate college till the tenth results were out. I had given Commerce as the second choice and Biology (II group) as third group since I had made my mind long back in sixth standard, that if at all I would ever have to do dissection of an animal, I would revolt, run out of lab, and abandon marks for practicals. Such a preference would give the least chance of getting in Biology group, Arts ruled out in any case. Luckily I did not have to create such a scene. Against the sky-rocketing 99.9% of State board students my humble 88% CBSE marks looked too meagre but managed to get me a first group in the grand old Govt. Victoria College, Palakkad.

The classes started somewhere in August 1999. The Engineering Entrance exams were my biggest mystery of all times. Unlike the current internet world of today, there were no such access to public information in 1996.. (hmm .. 11 long years, looks like it all happened yesterday). In the midst of the confusion some body infused into me the IIT dream too. I had to rely on whatever information was provided by friends. The faces of the college lecturers at Victoria College would turn red the moment someone mentions anything about entrance exams. I had been whining away my time during the vacation while most of my friends had joined coaching centres for entrance and tutions.

The initial weeks were like hell. I felt so unsecure about my future. Did I miss the bus? Will I ever become a Electronics Engineer? Classes at Victoria College, for that matter any Kerala college were time pass with strikes every alternate day. If it is not strike, it is the attitude of the lectures - "what if I don't take classes, these people must have enrolled somewhere for tution". Most of my friends would be discussing about the portions taken at their weekend tution classes. While i would be fighting a losing battle against differentiation, some of them would be way ahead in integration.

Faced with such a lack of information, I contacted a few of the well know names in the tution and coaching business. They added their bit of fear onto me stating that entrance exams covers a wide range of syllabus that is not covered in the university - something every middleman in India does. So enrolling in entrance coaching alone is not sufficient I need to enroll for the weekend coaching classes too.

Deluded I discussed with parents, they were equally clueless. Three things were hanging over my head. First, I knew that my father's business is not doing well. But parents were obviously not hesitant to invest as much money this would need. Second, this whole idea of sacrificing Saturdays and Sundays did not go down well into me. Third, my reasoning that if engineering entrance, (for that matter any testing of aptitude) is all about the engineering aptitude in us; it is either I have it or I don't. The whole idea of "coaching" seemed illogical. But inspite of all these I decided to go for it.

It seems a lot of important turning points in life are decided in a casual uneventful meet. One evening while returning from Melamuri I met a village mate and my senior in college. It was a casual meet but he went on to explain the nuances of the entrance exams, the professional secrets of the "coachers". He gave me a list of few books that are basically objective question banks in each of physics, chemistry and maths. His words were quite convincing, though he never addressed the carefree attitude of college lecturers in covering portions. It was dark when we parted but I was cleared of my confusions.

A week later I happened to visit my mother's cousin in Coimbatore who is in a reputed Christian Convent. She too voiced similar opinions which cemented my decision to do it alone. She also gave me address of a reputed Chennai based instution for correspondence based tutorial for IIT. I saw a few of their books at her place. I felt the content to be quite interesting as against a shortcut for success. So I enrolled.

The next two years were a race against time. The college lecturers had unfailing faith on the private coaching agencies that they took classes at their leisure and often taking an unfaithful dig at their private saviours. Strikes and college elections provided the much needed entertainment. While my classmates sacrificed their weekends, I spent some quality at home. It was not a tough job as such, since I used to return home by 11 am or 12 am everyday and spend the rest of the day learning the portions left out by lecturers. That was the best period of life though at times I would wonder if I had taken the wrong decision.

During the second year the attendance started to dry up by January end and teachers and students were boycotting classes mutually. And on one fine early February morning, there were only two boys, obviously I was one of them, in the physics class. We both went to meet the physics lecturer. He behaved like a reluctant government officer and asked us "Ningal enda tution poovaathathu?" (Why didn't you two go to tutions?)

That was humiliating. I had a last look at the room 94, our classroom for the last two years and left. The next time I was in college was for exams - I suppose.

The last days to the entrance exams were filled with fun, thrill, & anxiety. The village Ther festival was a week before the exams. I could not afford to sit and read my school books when so much fun is out in the temple. Adding to all my academic tensions, was the nuclear adventure of India. I was glued to the TV and newspapers following the world's reaction and all the double standards.

The mystery was finally solved on the Physics entrance exam. It wasn't really as big as it was all blown out to be. I was quite confident as l left the hall after the Physics exam. Maths was a washout, I would have managed to finish a face saving number of questions. During the last year I had a very dedicated Organic Chemistry lecturer at college, who made organic chemistry so interesting that I did all the questions in the Chemistry entrance confidently. A month later I went to see the results at the Civil Station along with my friend. I turned the page looking for the my rank, there it was - 2021. It was considered a "good" rank in those times. I heaved a sign of relief. We decided to go for a movie. It was raining heavily but who cares!!

The two year story will be incomplete if I don't complete the last casual uneventful meeting. It was quite sure that I will not get ECE - my fascination, atleast in Palakkad, NSS Engineering College with that rank. Most of my friends had decided to choose mechanical engineering. I kept swaying between mechanical and electrical. My arguement - EEE has an electronics in it so it will be a decent bargain against ECE. Way back in 1998, Computer Science had not become so popular. Inspite of all the advice from friends to opt for mechanical I was adamant on taking EEE. On my train journey to Thiruvananthapuram to attend the councelling, a group of college students from Bangalore joined us at Ernakulam. They had missed their train due to confusion of dates that usually happens with tickets booked on the zero hour. one of the boys was quite friendly and I picked up a chat with him. I explained my predicament. He said "Given a choice of EEE and ME, go for Mechanical. It is evergreen"

The next day, when asked for my branch at councelling. I said "Mechanical Engineering, NSS college of Engineering" I have never regretted that decision of mine.

Posted by Ramanan at 9:22 AM

The First Flight

Flying!

A feat that has been humankind's fantasy since time immemorial. No wonder, I had the fantasy too. It was indeed a surprise and a mystery about how the things down below would look when seen from sky. The closest experience I had was with a Flight Simulator programme , I used to play on my PC. Subsequently, Google Earth came closer.

Plane Gazing:

My house in Pazhavanthangal, in Chennai, was hardly a kilometre from Chennai Airport and I could watch the flights landing and taking off from my sky. But most of them being domestic ones, would be the small Airbus 300, 310 & 320 or Boeing 737s, Paramount Airlines' Embraer E-Jets and an few occasional ATRs. They provided a variety to the eyes.

The magnificent ones however are the international ones that fly the huge Airbus 340s, Boeing 747 and the Boeing 777. Most of these however stick to the night schedules. Some do fly the day times like the Air France Cargo - a B747, Emirates - A330 and a weekly Thai - B747. But then, there was one plane that I admired the most. It is a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300 (though I believed it to be an Airbus 340). Oh! the introduction is taking too long, but if I don't describe this, I will not be doing justice to this topic.

This is a late evening flight and lands at Chennai at about 10:45 at night. It is easy to identify the bigger flights even at night since, they unlike others approach the runway so slowly, sometimes even appearing to be still. It is a beautiful sight as she turns around her left as arriving from the Bay of Bengal and positioning herself along the runway. She would glide down gracefully and silently. At a kilometre before the runway, she would turn on her main lights and a few lights below her wings illuminating the herself and the trees around the airport. It is a marvellous sight to see the huge, long and magnificent bird gracefully touching down and then vanish between the trees - a sight I would see almost everyday without getting bored.

Events leading to my flight

It was late January and I received this interview call from Tata Chemicals in Mithapur, Gujarat. Attending an interview in Gujarat and returning back to work in Chennai was nothing short of a nightmare. HR of the company will be paying the equivalent of AC train fare from Chennai to their place. The biggest problem I found out with trains was that there are no good trains to Ahmedabad, that reaches on time and that I had to go another 500 km west of Ahmedabad to this place. I checked a few websites for the flight charges to Ahmedabad and it turned out that Air Deccan fares came a about Rs. 1000 higher than the AC train fare.

Given that my current job profile was not so glamorous coupled with a bureaucracy in the company that links everything from the cup you have tea in, internet access and the class of travel to your position, there was no way, I would be travelling in a plane in the near future. Though the position offered at Tata Chemicals was quite good, but then I that is something still far. So I decided to take go ahead. As I sat at Thrisulam railway station opposite to the Chennai Airport, with the e-ticket in hand and gazing at the new hoardings put up by GoAir, KingFisher and others, a few friends were discussing about their US visa interview and plans to go to USA. I looked at the destination on my ticket, Ahmedabad and laughed at myself.

At Airport

That day was the Sunday, 19th February 2006. The flight was scheduled at 12:50 I believe. I did not have much to carry, since, it was for a day or two, I just had 2 sets of clothes and a few essentials and then a camera. It was quite nervous. It is not the fear of heights but a sense of disbelief and an unknown tension. I reached the airport very well ahead of time. Being the first time, I asked the information centre what I am supposed to do. They directed me to the check in counter, and the scanner. I went to the scanner with the display "Air Deccan" and tried to put my cabin baggage into it. The personal over there told me that is for checked in baggage, I nodded as if I understood and proceeded to the check in counter. Then I completed the security and moved to the gates.

I was quite early and add to that the flight was declared late. I sat at the departure lounge looking at planes taking off and landing. There was one Indian Airlines plane to Mumbai, with a bridge attached it. Every five minutes there would be a "last and final call" for the passengers boarding that flight. Perhaps the crew were afraid of travelling alone. As the display kept updating the departures of other flights, my flight status was a static "delay".

I was watching and observing every smallest things and the activities over there, since I may not get to fly in the near future. Perhaps due to the reason that Chennai did not have enough gates, most airlines were carrying the passengers up to the plane in their buses. A cabin crew will be at the gate with a list and a security officer would be checking the boarding passes and letting the passengers into the bus.

Where to sit?

When you are going to fly for the first time and perhaps the last time, would it not be wise to have the window seat? And that is exactly what I wanted too. And not just that, I wanted to sit exactly on the side from where I can see my terrace at Pazhavanthangal from where I gazed all the planes. So I observed the direction the planes were taking off, before I left home and decided that I should be sitting on the right side to have a glimpse of my home. Since low cost airlines don't assign seat numbers, it is first come first served for seating on board.

I was in for a shock. There were couple of announcements going on. One about the late departure of my flight and another the late arrival of a flight of the same airline from Port Blair. Perhaps the flight from Andaman goes to Ahmedabad as the next flight. I was shocked to see an ATR from Andaman landing. A sense of despair ran down. I am not going to travel in a flight that resembles a Kerala transport bus with two fans on its sides. But it is too late.

As the boarding time neared, people started crowding near the gate which seemed most probable. Without losing time I jumped into the line and managed a decent 10th position, well not a bad one. But with a last minute announcement and change of gates, they ensured that I landed up in the middle of the newly formed line. Luckily that made me amongst the last persons to board the first bus and I ended up being among the first few people to board the plane.

As the bus moved on towards the ATR, all my excitement vanished and I wished I could evaporate in thin air. The bus went a few hundred metres of the ATR and made a U turn, and lo! there stands an Airbus 320, with a few staff on the tarmac and is being refuelled. So this is my flight. I was jubilant. It was exiting as I boarded the plane. I felt like it was all gloomy inside and cold and filled with smoke, but I did not fail to notice the beautiful flight attendant.

In the excitement I ran to the right seat on the fifth or so row but then realised that it could be over the wings and does not serve the purpose.

The take off

I wasn't sure if camera may be used on board so did not take it out. As the plane taxied down the to runway, I leaned against the windows to see the world outside from the air. It positioned itself and pulled forward. As it accelerated forward, the g-forces were pulling be back, I have never been subjected to this before. I cannot forget the moment the landing gears were lifted and my first moment in air. I said to myself "You did it".

On board

Soon, the familiar landmarks were zooming past, so fast that I before I could decipher them, they are gone. I did not find my terrace, all I could see was a matrix of streets and trees and concrete rectangles. The plane soon crossed the St. Thomas Mount Railway station and made a sharp turn to left before I could have a glimpse of Guindy. Further it was all uncharted territory and could hardly make out anything.

Once it crossed the Chennai suburbs and reached its cruising altitude, nothing was hardly visible on the ground. It was a clear day with blue skies and huge clouds "below". It was like flying over a garden with cauliflowers lying around.

When ever the ground was visible, I could make out cities and towns by the roads - roads would be radiating out from some points which obviously should be urban areas. It is amazing to see how illogical and round about many of the highways are when looked up from the sky. The rivers shone like strands of silver wire. At a few places, I could see large dams, identifiable with a straight edge on one side and other sides rivers running into the reservoir resembling fingers and the palm.

Thus two hours literally flew past.

After ten months, I crossed the seas in that Singapore Airlines B777-300, which I used to admire every night from my terrace.