Jaipur Serial Blasts… A Sad Awakening? (UPDATED!!!)

It’s no wonder that we see the American government spend billions of dollars in the name of internal security. What amazes me is that this country, which has seen the ‘real’ face of terror for only a few years now, has pioneered in showing the world how to counter it!

Terrorism came bundled with the scheme of events that took place on the night of August 15, 1947. It became our destiny as Indians to wake up to the sounds of machine guns, AK-57s, grenades, and bombs going off in the various parts. But, again, as Indians, we replied ‘appropriately’ by turning a deaf ear to all that concerns our nation. No matter how loud the sound of this ‘cuckoo’ got, we just kept on sleeping. Not even that, dare I say, worries me! What actually gets on my nerves is the fact that every day, we see so many men, women, and children being consumed in the pyre of ‘jehaad’ and that the more we see those gory scenes on TV and the more we hear about them on the radio, the more lackadaisical we become and the lesser we care for our fellow countrymen.

The moral and cultural fabric of the society that we so commonly use to counter any comparison with the ‘west’, is, and I feel sorry and ashamed to say, being not torn but shredded into pieces. No Indian that I meet can stand up and defend this nation for five minutes against the criticism (based on facts and figures) that i toss at him/her. Though I’d more than love to loose this debate, against the usual habit, it has not happened still and I’d be shouting my lungs out at this very blog the day it does! It may sound too critical of me, even bordering sycophancy of the developed nations, but the fact is that if we have to improve, we will have to learn from those who are there already.

Our intelligence agency is called RAW (Research and Analysis Wing). It is incredibly stupid (or brilliant, depending on the way you see it!) of the people who coined the term for the pun which was ingrained. It really is a raw (read untrained) manner in which this agency functions. I can not imagine them not being able to get a tip-off for such a major terrorist activity. But again, the motto of these ‘take the nation’s money-do nothing-get fat each day-keep vacationing at behest of missions’ agents (not to offend the real agents working for agencies like CIA, FBI, MI5 etc) is to ‘rise beyond expectations’ (only to fail in a new manner each time, to maintain USP that is!) If I get kidnapped after writing this piece, you know whom to blame… no damnit, it’s not RAW (those people don’t know how to do even that!), its our age-old acquaintance, the ISI. They need me because they can’t ridicule the RAW in the manner that I do!

When a nation has 90% of its police officers above the ‘you are fat’ level and the IPS’ and IAS’ making money like poker machines, this is bound to happen. Why is it not that even after three decades, we have not been able to curtail the wings of terrorism in J&K and North-East when it took us less than five years to do that in Punjab.

The answer is not that simple but the pathway surely requires a leader who actually thinks more than the ways to live for another year! Also, an important mention would be of the role of ordinary citizens, including ME and YOU, who have been sleeping long enough to cause clinical brain damage! If we don’t wake up, the policies would not change, politicians will not feel afraid of abusing and even selling our own country, and terrorism will continue to spread.

And then, one day, you will wake up to the same sound that you have been hearing over TV for years, but you would be lying on a stretcher being rushed to the emergency and the loss of one arm won’t bother you as much as the remorse and the agony of the fact that you did not do something, anything when you could make a difference.

Vande Mataram!

Time for some updates on Jaipur Blasts:

1. RDX used in blasts. (Do we really care about WHAT was used? Work harder and find out WHO did it!)
2. HUJI suspected. (Ok, so this Jehaadi setup is the cowardly face behind it. Good job finding that out RAW. Oh wait, was it that they called you up to take responsibility and get the fame! Doesn’t matter, don’t cry, just CATCH them!!)
3. PM announces 1 lakh compensation for the kin (Oh thanks Mr. Prime Minister. Thanks but we don’t want those green bundles rolling our way the next time. Stop being so fucking shameless and get those bastards!)
4. Curfew Imposed in Pink City (Just cross your fingers and pray to god it works. Fools!)

Racism in United States?

Coming soon….

Have I been racially discriminated in the United States? Well… I don’t really know but I’ll let you judge!

Announcements:

This is for all of my friends:

1. I’m back in Delhi since May 7, 2008. Currently, I’m braving the same old routine!
2. My US trip was so awesome, I can’t tell you enough! Did a lot of things, had a lot of fun!!
3. Anyone wanting ‘Hershey’s Kisses’ is most welcome to my room!
4. All my photos are on my lappy n of course U can see them anytime!!
5. Delhi Pub Rock Fest is beginning soon, I need a company… care to join?

For everyone:

1. I’ll be writing regular blog posts from now on, so be sure you give my blog regular visits!
2. I’m planning a medical students’ blog (not for medicine related stuff bt general chitchat). Anyone interested, contact me!
3. Porn, drugs and serial killers are BAD…. stay away!!!

Enough for this one…. catcha latr!

I’m back!!

For the uninformed, the reason why I had not been writing any blog posts for the past two months was that I was in the US for professional purposes and my daily schedule did not allow me to think beyond usual, an essential prerequisite for creative writing!

But, that was then! Now, I’m back in India with tons of interesting things and experiences to share with you guys! Most of these things are ones which you already know or have heard about, hence my motive would be to impart a fresh perspective to these experiences.

Also, upon request from a few of my friends from international blogosphere, I’ve decided to keep the vocabulary simple in my posts. This is to ensure readability and easy understanding. Certain posts shall be flagged for advanced vocab, so don’t throw away that dictionary just yet!

That should be all for now. Be sure to check out the announcements in the next post! I’m also planning on launching another blog with medical content. That is subject to finding enough contributors!

Cheers and thanks for the support!

Arpit

Jet…. Set…. and RRRRUUUUUUN!!!

To catch a flight at 8:30am, you would normally wake up at 4:30, get ready and leave your place at 5:30AM. Then, as the system is everywhere, dial a number, call the cab and reach the airport at 6:00AM. Check in by 6:30 and wallah! your on your way to the destination. Simple, isn’t it?

But, when you are me…. in New Jersey…. awake chatting with ur bud till late the night before… things are bound to get… well… ummm…. pretty fked up!

So, I woke up at 430AM alright AND got ready well in time… but decided to take a short walk to nearby cafe to have a snack and WALLAH!!!!! we got so fuckin delayed…. we reached the airport at 7:45AM. So what? Just in time! right?? yeah, they said I could check in, but they had stopped checking in the luggage… toh I was practically suggested to goto the city of angels, dressed like one… (with just once pyjama in my backpack!!!)

Many emotional requests later, the sweet and kind-hearted lady at the counter rescheduled my non-transferable, non-refundable, booked a month in advance (well… in other words, cheapest-available) ticket to the next flight (in the evening)! All this while, I stood there with a sad face, drenched in sweat waiting for the good/bad news.

As soon as I got the boarding pass for the next flight, we came out of the airport and breathed the cool air! What followed was a sequence of events beginning with us getting back to Ankit’s house, leaving the luggage and going out to the city…

The first half of the day was spent in search of a second-hand mobile (just to make-do) and finally, I got hold of an okeish mobile for  60 bucks. After a quick bite at the Indian Street in Jersey, we rushed back to Ankit’s house.

Cab took us to the EWR airport at around 4:30PM. I checked in and then spent 45 mins with Ankit doing chit-chat. I boarded the flight at 6:15PM and after a short announcement by the captain, a shaky-looking plane took me to the sky!

Next Stop: LA a.k.a. Los Angeles a.k.a. City of Angels a.k.a. My home for next 7 weeks!

A day in the Garden State

For the uninitiated, New Jersey is also called the Garden State. Now, in the last post, I wrote about how we reached at Ankit’s Place. After taking a nap from 7:00am to 2:30pm, we finally woke up to the 1000th snooze of the alarm! Getting ready took another 1:30 hrs. The weather was very good with chill winds and low temp of around 5-6 deg. I was feeling bad because I had missed the snow by just two days. But anyways, we went to the Jersey City to get sum stuff and buy a mobile. I got my supply of Indian food to get me through the upcoming food shortage that I’d be facing in LA. With that done, we went pillar to post in search of a mobile and a phone connection. In US, everyone has a constant service provider and mostly post-paid connection(s). So, the situation was pretty bad. But we finally settled on a T-Mobile plan for 50$ per month. Now, the only problem was a mobile. Finding one turned out to be a real pain in the neck. It is only then I realized the difference between your own country and ‘paraya pardes’!!

We could not find the mobile, so it was decided that it’d be purchased in LA. I had a flight the next morning, so we had some food outside and came straight back home.

Rest of the time was spent chatting and we went to sleep!

The next day was one full of adrenaline rushes!!! But who knew!

Read the next post to find out more….

Next Stop: The Times Square!!

We boarded the train to go the the NY Penn Metro Station on our way to New Jersey, Ankit suggested the idea of going for a walk at the Times Square which is in Manhattan, NY. So, it was decided and we got off the train at the nearest station to Times Square. With two large bags (total 60kgs) and a huge back-pack, we climbed two staircases to reach the ground level. We exited and I found myself standing at the Times Square. It was an amazing sight with XXL Billboards and XXXL Buildings and not to mention the fact that every single THING was lit up with endless no. of bulbs. This was the condition at 2:30 in the night. We walked on the 42nd street. I saw what I had been hearing about for years… Broadway theater, Madam Tussad’s (Wax) Museum (With wax statues of Nicholas Cage and Opera Winfrey in the window displays!!!), Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not!’ building and ofcourse, Mc’Donalds. We had a snack at Mc’D and then walked to the place where America welcomes its New Year (remember those visuals on your TV from NY showing thousands of people gathered for New Year?). We saw Macy’s and Virgin Store and mind you, we had walked for almost a mile to reach the (end?) of Times Square (this square is biiiiggg!). It was really irritating to walk back all that distance to reach the Metro station to New Jersey. But, so we did! I was tired but nevertheless, it was a great feeling to be sitting at the underground metro station at 4:00 in the night, waiting for the train and with the visuals of Times Square in the head! The train came, we boarded and an hour later, we were in Jersey (the garden state). A quick cab ride brought us to the doorstep of Ankit’s house at Mulock Place in Harrison.

We dragged the luggage to the second floor apartment and all I could possible do at that point was to get a good sleep. And so I did.

More on how my time in Jersey and NY was spent in next post…

Helllooooo New York!

Finally, the announcement was made. We had been flying over the outskirts of NY when I woke up. All I could see was an endless array of light bulbs glowing as if a billion lightening bugs were neatly stacked in blocks of varying sizes! The expanse of New York City was something that I had neither seen nor imagined. It was 1145PM on 03/Mar NY time. Our flight landed at the John F. Kennedy International Airport 5 mins later. Seeing the JFK made me realize that the Delhi Airport needs another 100 years to even come close to what JFK is today!

Anyways, we walked through the corridor towards the immigration counter, only to find a line for immigration. As I stood there waiting, I could feel my heart race with excitement about how I was finally here in US, my plans for the next two months and a million other things!! The gentleman at the immigration called out for me, asked why I was here and a few questions later, I was stamped for a max. stay of SIX months in US!!

I had to wait for half an hour for my luggage to arrive, the reason for which, as one could imagine, was that my bags would’ve been placed perhaps at the bottom of the whole stack as I was one of the few people on the flight who were flying from New-Delhi to New York. All that time was utilized in thinking and drafting an emergency backup plan in case my bags didn’t arrive at all!!! (hehe!) Guess what… it takes $3 (Rs. 120) for luggage trolley!! (All I could manage for this was… wtf!!)

I then reached the customs counter, which took away a pre-filled form, asked if I was carrying any food (No points for guessing the answer) and then, I was finally in the USA. I took an AIRTRAIN to the Howard Beach Station. It was an awesome experience riding in a train (slightly smaller than Delhi Metro) which runs on an elevated track (almost making you feel as if in air and hence the name). My friend (Ankit) had come to pick me up. It was getting late (around 1:30AM) and we decided to take a train to reach his house in New Jersey.

More in the next post!

Delayed by FIFTEEN HOURS!!!

(Continued from the previous post…)

So, we boarded the next flight from Abu Dhabi to JFK, New York. The time was around 2:00AM. Just as the captain gave instructions for the crew to prepare for take-off, the window on my side became fogged up. I could barely see the outside. The camera on the In-flight entertaiment system showed heavy rain and dense fog which had suddenly appeared in a span of a few minutes!

The next announcement was made half an hour later which told all the passengers that there has been an unexpected storm at Abu Dhabi and that no flight could take off till the weather clears. So, we were asked to deboard the airplane and wait at the airport.

When the chart for rescheduled flights was displayed, we were shocked! They had, beyond any reasonable imagination, delayed our flight by FIFTEEN hours! So, now we could only take off at 5:30PM on Mar 03, 2008. I was…. what can I say (in most civilized manner i.e.!)…. aghast! Anyways, this time, the a**h***s from Etihad were least helpful and had NO answers to any of our queries and NO solutions to our problems!! We were told that the accommodation will be arranged at 7:00 in the morning. Meanwhile, we were given an option of having snacks in a 4star restaurant at the airport. So, after the snacks and hours of waiting, I received a room at the AIRPORT HOTEL (which, to my surprise, turned out to be a five-star and a quite luxurious one at that!!). We were offered complimentary lunch (which was okeish!). We boarded the flight at 5:30PM and the captain welcomed us onboard. The plane headed to the taxiway, all set to fly the skies of New York..

More in my next post… STAY TUNED!

::Cheers::

From New-Delhi to Abu-Dhabi

With so many things to be packed and so less time, it was expected to be a hefty schedule! So many clothes, food and what not! Since it was going to be my first trip to the US, I didn’t quite know what to put in and what to leave out. Anyways, after toiling hard for many days, 70 kilos of ’stuff’ was packed into three bags and I was set to go!

I had a flight with Etihad Airways (the official airline of UAE) on 02 March (One might ask the question that why did I not take Air India or Jet Airways? Well, these are 3-star while Etihad was 4, so I guess it was a safe bet!). The flight was on time and I bid India good-bye at around 11:30 PM IST. I was sitting with a gentleman from Amsterdam and since he was a globe-trotter and a fun-loving guy, we had a very interesting conversation. And yes, being from the drug capital of the world, he increased my knowledge about certain* things!! By the way, it was a wonderful flight with superb food and beverage** but a rather cold hospitality (not unexpected from a new airline!). We were right on time and landed at Abu-Dhabi at 11:30 PM (UAE time).

The airport was a beautiful sight with marvelous architecture. My next flight was in 2:30 hrs, so I went window shopping in the duty-free zone at the airport. I found out first hand that all that glitters in Abu-Dhabi is really really expensive. With all the ‘most-famous’ brands at disposal, it was a feeling that I had never experienced! Then… we boarded the next flight to John F. Kennedy Airport, NEW YORK at 2:00 AM (UAE time).

…. to be continued!