Month: June 2004

It’s not me, it’s genetic.

I’ve been trying very hard to make and reason out a bunch of decisions. It isn’t easy when you don’t really know
a. what it is you’re aiming for.
b. whether the course of action you decree to be the solution really results in forwarding the aim you’re unsure about.

I’ve really tried, but it’s so hard to just go out and execute plans. Things are awesome at the moment. Are fears considering future eventualities, distance, changes and so on warranted? And what’s up with me working under the assumption emotions are simple things that can be turned on or off at a moment’s notice?

Spent most of my day with my mom (except for the little while I spent with grandma). Talked all morning, and baked a cake together in the evening.

Complete with me licking up excess batter quite shamelessly. Sweet, literally.

It feels good to not feel old.

Imagine how things would have been if the delivery of my luggage hadn’t been expedited.

The clowns. *Shudder*

I’m also cushiony.

Yes folks, that’s 21^st century PC speak for fat.

In a good way? :D

It’s like being a dad, without the work.

After a lot of thought, and quite some research, I have finally decided on the charitable organization I plan to support. I’ve picked an SOS Children’s Village close to home (in Madras). I’m supporting a baby girl, and a baby boy.

We met up with the director of the place and he showed us around. I was impressed. Everyone seemed very happy. I must say these kids have more place to play than I did as a child. (Not like I would have used it or anything, but still.)

A couple of quick peeks.

More pictures will go up in the regular galleries when I go back to a land where I have enough bandwidth to upload all of them.

First you look up and you’re all “Woah, dude, it’s all green.”

And then you see the ground.

Ahh, home.

Apparently, I have soft hands. Apparently, they can talk.

Apparently, I am very expressive.

And that feels nice.

that made me rich. Well, richer.

Dear Sir/Madam,

My journey originated at Detroit Metro (DTW) (on flight NW68 ) and my travel route to Chennai involved stops at Amsterdam and Mumbai. I arrived at Mumbai late Tuesday (the 15th of June) evening on Northwest Airlines (flight NW42) from Amsterdam to find my luggage missing. I immediately filed a property irregularity report at the airport of which I have a photocopy. At that time, I was informed that my luggage would make it on the same flight the next evening, and would subsequently be delivered home. I was also given the contact information of the local KLM office and asked to get in touch with them for further information.

I had been on the phone with the KLM office contact given to me, and they did respond, but not very accurately. I was informed pretty much the same thing everyday – “That it would be sent home that evening”. On the morning of the 19th, when I hadn’t seen any progress over the past few days, I decided to stop by the office personally. When I arrived at the given office address, I was basically told to voice all my opinions in a mail, and the airline would do the needful. This is that mail.

When I enquired regarding compensation for this delay, I was informed that I ought to wait for my luggage. This was so that I could ascertain that everything was in order, and file for this allowance as well as for anything probably missing together. There wasn’t a form, there was no procedure indicated, and the person I spoke to wasn’t very helpful. He wasn’t even able to give me the contact details of the manager.

It’s times like this when all a passenger really needs is to hear reassuring and accurate information regarding progress. I was offered none of that. All I got were (after repeated attempts) people who didn’t seem like they cared and excuses that were laughable in a professional environment (“Oh, you know our customs sir”). While they were informing me my luggage was sent to Delhi instead of Mumbai, and that the delay was probably being caused by the time taken to transfer my customs clearance papers from Mumbai to Delhi, the tone implied that it was OK for me to be going through this because I am an Indian citizen with a permanent address in Chennai.

Presently, I am a doctoral student in the United States. Having a home here doesn’t imply it is any easier on me to handle any of this. I had no clothes, toiletry or any other essentials on me for over three days. Not all of this is about the monetary value of the items themselves. I had papers and books to help me with my work. Without them, I was pretty much sitting unproductive, twiddling thumbs waiting for them to come.

I would like to be compensated for the hardship that I have experienced and essentials that I’ve had to purchase in this waiting period. I believe fair compensation would be about 300$ (100$ a day, for 3 days) as my luggage arrived late evening on Saturday the 19th, over 3 days after the intended arrival time. I also have some of the receipts for my purchases in this period, which I will gladly furnish if requested.

This was easily one of the most unpleasant experiences I have ever had while travelling, and I don’t believe I would want to go through it again. However, I am glad that my luggage did arrive eventually, and that everything was in order. I do thank you for that.

Sincerely,
Me

An aside:

Of course, though I’m not sure how much me saying this is going to result in a positive transformation, I sincerely believe the Northwest counters in DTW are seriously understaffed. There were a handful of overwhelmed women handling extremely large crowds. I do understand the e-ticket machines exist to take up some of this load, and consequently staff are probably laid off on their acquisition, but they don’t seem to be doing their job adequately. The queues for the regular paper tickets for the international flights were much longer than those with e-tickets. And I also noticed a bulk of the regular staff was spending a good deal of their time helping people use the ticketing machines instead of being useful elsewhere. This doesn’t seem very productive.

I do believe my luggage and I would have made it on our intended paths, had we been handled by more than a skeleton check-in staff at that airport.

If a book named like this doesn’t sell in this country, nothing will.

And I meditate, a lot.

So much for my world err plane domination plans.

gmail’s gone nuts. I’ve been getting like 3/6 invites to give away each day for the past few days, and it’s annoying. You begin to realize you don’t even know so many people.

Thank you, gmail, for reminding me in YET ANOTHER way I ought to know more people by now. You know, considering so many years of existence on this planet and all.

Update: Make that two invites to spare.

Agitated:

Tranquil:

And unrelated, my stuff’s arrived. And nothing major’s missing.

Not.