This journey, pretty close to being a romantic one, was also - under all measurable criteria - quite a talkative one. D was in Bhubaneswar (mind your b's, v's and pha's when in Odisha) and suggested over a call that we can mix business and pleasure that weekend, as she was relatively less occupied during that period. I checked the ticket rates and to my surprise Indigo's web services software had shockingly failed to apply the surge rates, which generally they so efficiently do. I quickly switched to incognito (you should always do this lest you want all data hungry web crawlers to hog on your personal data - mind you google still has access to your data, even when you are incognito) and booked a return ticket, without burning a deep hole in my pocket.
Meru cabs is the most trustworthy one when it comes to airport drops in Bengaluru, especially when our airport is in Chennai (last checked the latest uber app was allowing me to book cabs well in advance, more than the usual hour or two - yes more power to the consumer!) and even though it was just 5 hours before my journey would commence, the reliable service sent me an assuring message that i'll be picked up on time. The excitement of all this left me sleepless that night which was anyway very short!
Venkatesh called me at 2:30 am sharp, even before message details were sent from Meru. He was all too eager to pick me up for my 5:30 am flight. Within half an hour he called me again informing that he was waiting downstairs. I grabbed my "Oracle - iXL program" bag (that was the only bag that would contain all that I needed for my weekend sojourn - travel light, yes but unlike me do invest in your travel accessories and again unlike me, never disclose your identity via your luggage!) and hopped on the Verito to embark on a short and sweet (it was!) journey.
Venkatesh didn't loose any time to start a conversation - how he used to stay near Bomanahalli, was earlier a freight carrier driver, how he moved on to become a cab driver at Dell call centre and became familiar with Bengalure roads/traffic.
"Moved to Chikkaballapur now, saar...very expensive Bengaluru!"
"Drive two days straight, crash at my relatives sometimes...go to Chikkaballapur every 4-5 days"
"Two kids, one boy one girl...education very expensive here"
"Kids very smart these days, saar, speak fast english...know more about smartphones and tech than us"
"Had to pay 18K for boy's UKG and they were asking for 25K for his first standard...Chikkaballapur much cheaper, only 14K for first standard"
14k!! I bet I had completed my entire schooling in an amount less than that!
"You from Bengaluru?"
Not sure if he heard my response.
"Oh! Siddaramaiah is very corrupt, saar...takes money from everyone...he didn't pass a plan for an IT park near Chikkaballapur since the builder was not paying anything upfront and instead was bargaining to pay after the IT park was ready...he knows he wouldn't be around when they complete it...so was asking for upfront money"
Though I wasn't sleepy yet I was certainly in no mood to have a conversation at that hour. But what he said next, forced me to have an engaging conversation with Venkatesh!
"If i don't talk I'll fall asleep, saar!"
What! No!! You please continue - we might as well discuss global warming, US presidential elections, gonorrhea, piles anything under the sun to keep you awake!
"Pubs - Siddaramaiah has changed the timings now...drink till 1 am now and again he is making money with that."
"Naarth Indian girls drink too much saar...have taught south Indian girls also now"
So probably he did hear my response to his query.
"So drunk they can't even stand straight (makes a gesture with his hand - thumb and lil finger in a straight line and other fingers folded, shakes it then to mean girls unable to stand normally after drinks!)"
"Do not dress well also and in that condition anything can happen...not everyone thinks alike, saar"
Was I supposed to feel offended or tell him that it is their choice to dress, drink or do whatever with their life - instead i did what i do best - made a mumbling sound of neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him and remained silent till he picked up another thread!
"Thanks a lot Mr Venkatesh, it was nice talking to you!", was how this leg of my journey ended.
"Kursi kii peti aise lagayein..." - i had boarded the plane and every time I hear "peti" i can't stop smiling (the way the flight attendants speak Hindi with an English accent, amuses me to the core - in fact i go all bonkers in my head but try to keep only a smiling façade, without offending anyone!)
"Good morning ladies and gentleman, this is your captain, Anand Pillai speaking" - no sooner we were in air the captain decided to show off his oratory skills or probably to show off his, I admit, very thick baritone! It was almost like God talking and keeping us braced about the events at 20K feet above MSL.
"It is around 1200 kms to Bhubaneswar and we'll be covering this distance in little more than an hour and half"
Whoa jet speed - please do your math to get as astonished as I was! (not that this was the first time I was amazed by jet speed but accompanied, as it was, with the heavy baritone, it sounded so incredible!)
And Mr Pillai spoke intermittently throughout the flight from his "flight deck" about temperature, weather in Bhubaneswar and if it is cloudy we might feel some disturbances and jitters. However, it was his rich baritone which reassured me, at least, that such minor hiccups will be well taken care of!
He even spoke in Hindi (minus the accent thankfully), equally reassuringly, about how expertly he will take care of everything - or something similar, I wasn't paying much attention at the content and was rather lost in thoughts of how he could as well earn a living by doing voice overs in movies, ads - oh wait but where is the thrill in that! Here at a height of 20K he can bring people close to divinity, shake the belief of atheists - yup no thrill in being a voice over artist, it was a humbug thought!
"You must have guessed from the engine noise that we are descending..." - this was the last monologue from God! But we guessing from engine speeds - what are we Aeronautic geniuses, come on God!
Bhubaneswar is a relatively clean airport, when compared to the airports in this part of the world (alà Ranchi, Patna, you get the drift I hope). Trying to keep up with the mood and plan of this journey, I thought of taking a bouquet of red roses. As I was waiting at a florist just outside the airport Mr Pandav (the way he came to help me I guess Hanuman would've been an apt name), came rushing towards me.
"What type of bouquet you want Bhaina"
"Colorful - no I don't have roses"
"Where you going sir? Mayfair, come come"
"Aye one to Mayfair", he signaled at the pre-paid taxi counter. May be Pandav was the perfect name, handling everything with dexterity - Pandav is what Pandav does!
As I was waiting for the cab what amused me was the vehicle registration numbers around - OD, overdose! And I was about to know what, or rather whose overdose, was I about to get. I got into the pre-paid cab, which stopped to pick me up and guess who was the driver - Pandav! Did he have 5 twins or pentains or whatever you call it! OD!
"Bhaina this is my cab! I have three more cabs"
"You want bouquet...what is your budget?"
"I know a florist, my shop only, will take you there."
3 cabs, florist! Was he the most understated millionaire of Bhubaneswar!
He helped me get the roses I was looking for and also gave me his number in case I need to see more of his clones - just kidding, what he meant was if I needed any cabs for sight seeing.
Thankfully words from arbitrary characters dried up as I reached my destination. After two interesting, calming but breezy days at Bhubaneswar I am back with lovely memories of a chirpy jouney - full of spoken words and some unspoken ones too, by the way. A plane full of snoring paxs was the last sound of the journey which I remember, before I returned to the cacophony of Bangalore traffic.
Meru cabs is the most trustworthy one when it comes to airport drops in Bengaluru, especially when our airport is in Chennai (last checked the latest uber app was allowing me to book cabs well in advance, more than the usual hour or two - yes more power to the consumer!) and even though it was just 5 hours before my journey would commence, the reliable service sent me an assuring message that i'll be picked up on time. The excitement of all this left me sleepless that night which was anyway very short!
Venkatesh called me at 2:30 am sharp, even before message details were sent from Meru. He was all too eager to pick me up for my 5:30 am flight. Within half an hour he called me again informing that he was waiting downstairs. I grabbed my "Oracle - iXL program" bag (that was the only bag that would contain all that I needed for my weekend sojourn - travel light, yes but unlike me do invest in your travel accessories and again unlike me, never disclose your identity via your luggage!) and hopped on the Verito to embark on a short and sweet (it was!) journey.
Venkatesh didn't loose any time to start a conversation - how he used to stay near Bomanahalli, was earlier a freight carrier driver, how he moved on to become a cab driver at Dell call centre and became familiar with Bengalure roads/traffic.
"Moved to Chikkaballapur now, saar...very expensive Bengaluru!"
"Drive two days straight, crash at my relatives sometimes...go to Chikkaballapur every 4-5 days"
"Two kids, one boy one girl...education very expensive here"
"Kids very smart these days, saar, speak fast english...know more about smartphones and tech than us"
"Had to pay 18K for boy's UKG and they were asking for 25K for his first standard...Chikkaballapur much cheaper, only 14K for first standard"
14k!! I bet I had completed my entire schooling in an amount less than that!
"You from Bengaluru?"
Not sure if he heard my response.
"Oh! Siddaramaiah is very corrupt, saar...takes money from everyone...he didn't pass a plan for an IT park near Chikkaballapur since the builder was not paying anything upfront and instead was bargaining to pay after the IT park was ready...he knows he wouldn't be around when they complete it...so was asking for upfront money"
Though I wasn't sleepy yet I was certainly in no mood to have a conversation at that hour. But what he said next, forced me to have an engaging conversation with Venkatesh!
"If i don't talk I'll fall asleep, saar!"
What! No!! You please continue - we might as well discuss global warming, US presidential elections, gonorrhea, piles anything under the sun to keep you awake!
"Pubs - Siddaramaiah has changed the timings now...drink till 1 am now and again he is making money with that."
"Naarth Indian girls drink too much saar...have taught south Indian girls also now"
So probably he did hear my response to his query.
"So drunk they can't even stand straight (makes a gesture with his hand - thumb and lil finger in a straight line and other fingers folded, shakes it then to mean girls unable to stand normally after drinks!)"
"Do not dress well also and in that condition anything can happen...not everyone thinks alike, saar"
Was I supposed to feel offended or tell him that it is their choice to dress, drink or do whatever with their life - instead i did what i do best - made a mumbling sound of neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him and remained silent till he picked up another thread!
"Thanks a lot Mr Venkatesh, it was nice talking to you!", was how this leg of my journey ended.
"Kursi kii peti aise lagayein..." - i had boarded the plane and every time I hear "peti" i can't stop smiling (the way the flight attendants speak Hindi with an English accent, amuses me to the core - in fact i go all bonkers in my head but try to keep only a smiling façade, without offending anyone!)
"Good morning ladies and gentleman, this is your captain, Anand Pillai speaking" - no sooner we were in air the captain decided to show off his oratory skills or probably to show off his, I admit, very thick baritone! It was almost like God talking and keeping us braced about the events at 20K feet above MSL.
"It is around 1200 kms to Bhubaneswar and we'll be covering this distance in little more than an hour and half"
Whoa jet speed - please do your math to get as astonished as I was! (not that this was the first time I was amazed by jet speed but accompanied, as it was, with the heavy baritone, it sounded so incredible!)
And Mr Pillai spoke intermittently throughout the flight from his "flight deck" about temperature, weather in Bhubaneswar and if it is cloudy we might feel some disturbances and jitters. However, it was his rich baritone which reassured me, at least, that such minor hiccups will be well taken care of!
He even spoke in Hindi (minus the accent thankfully), equally reassuringly, about how expertly he will take care of everything - or something similar, I wasn't paying much attention at the content and was rather lost in thoughts of how he could as well earn a living by doing voice overs in movies, ads - oh wait but where is the thrill in that! Here at a height of 20K he can bring people close to divinity, shake the belief of atheists - yup no thrill in being a voice over artist, it was a humbug thought!
"You must have guessed from the engine noise that we are descending..." - this was the last monologue from God! But we guessing from engine speeds - what are we Aeronautic geniuses, come on God!
Bhubaneswar is a relatively clean airport, when compared to the airports in this part of the world (alà Ranchi, Patna, you get the drift I hope). Trying to keep up with the mood and plan of this journey, I thought of taking a bouquet of red roses. As I was waiting at a florist just outside the airport Mr Pandav (the way he came to help me I guess Hanuman would've been an apt name), came rushing towards me.
"What type of bouquet you want Bhaina"
"Colorful - no I don't have roses"
"Where you going sir? Mayfair, come come"
"Aye one to Mayfair", he signaled at the pre-paid taxi counter. May be Pandav was the perfect name, handling everything with dexterity - Pandav is what Pandav does!
As I was waiting for the cab what amused me was the vehicle registration numbers around - OD, overdose! And I was about to know what, or rather whose overdose, was I about to get. I got into the pre-paid cab, which stopped to pick me up and guess who was the driver - Pandav! Did he have 5 twins or pentains or whatever you call it! OD!
"Bhaina this is my cab! I have three more cabs"
"You want bouquet...what is your budget?"
"I know a florist, my shop only, will take you there."
3 cabs, florist! Was he the most understated millionaire of Bhubaneswar!
He helped me get the roses I was looking for and also gave me his number in case I need to see more of his clones - just kidding, what he meant was if I needed any cabs for sight seeing.
Thankfully words from arbitrary characters dried up as I reached my destination. After two interesting, calming but breezy days at Bhubaneswar I am back with lovely memories of a chirpy jouney - full of spoken words and some unspoken ones too, by the way. A plane full of snoring paxs was the last sound of the journey which I remember, before I returned to the cacophony of Bangalore traffic.
