actuality.log

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.

Since I’m not particularly in the mood to write about my trip, here are some pictures, you know, since they say a thousand words each and all.

I still don’t have my stuff, and it’s getting quite annoying. Quite inaptly,

Yeah, right.

Fun fact: It’s illegal to take pictures inside Indian airports, and from planes over Indian airspace.

Fun fact: Posting self incriminatory evidence is very dumb.

And actually quite well. I’m home.

It’s just, with all the delays, missed flights, lost luggage and so on due to NorthWest’s incompetence, jet lag, creepy bugs, Madras’ heat, water situation and superior air quality resulting in an “instant” sore throat, and… general things of this nature I won’t care to detail, I’m not great.

But I am very good, and home.

For the stalkers in the audience, who have to know my every move, here is my ultra-detailed itinerary:

* I leave Ann Arbor sometime on 14^th evening.
* <blur>
* I reach Madras in the wee hours of the morning on the 16^th, I think.

Oh, and our friends from Germany, welcome. I don’t really have the time for anything more elaborate, considering I need to pack.

It is all beginning to make sense now – my agitation I mean.

For those who don’t know, I don’t live in the real world, usually. Not to sound like some supernatural being or weird alien creature or something, but that’s quite an accurate way of putting it. I take refuge in my ivory-towery-“world” that I build for myself, far far from the details that I assume plague yours.

(No, not real ivory. No elephants were harmed in the creation of my habitat. Animal rights people: Shoo.)

In this happy place, everything real is trivial, and doesn’t deserve thought. Timing, location, actually having to deal with new people in varied surroundings, the risk of something going wrong… stuff that’s fairly commonplace in reality, is conspicuously absent in my bubble. Basic needs are about as real as I am willing to get. The rest is all fluff.

All of that is fine and dandy when your life involves a few scripted activities whose exact specifics don’t really matter. So when I am picked up from that cosy set up, and forced to deal with the real thing occasionally, it takes some getting used to. I freak out internally and I tend snap a lot more, but for the most part, on the outside, I seem too laid back (to downright dispassionate) about the task at hand. This tends to annoy some folk.

And everyone who knows me know I need help. They just have no idea how to show it without annoying me further. Here’s a poor person who’s already struggling and will not stoop down to things like asking you for your hand (guy thing?), but expects you to be all understanding and supportive. If not, at least sshh and act like you believe he’s handling it all fine.

In summary.
– I need more help than most when it comes down to real life situations.
– You know this.
– Instead of asking me “whether I’ve already done this or that” (knowing fully well I haven’t, because I don’t know how), help me do it.
– Or STFU, it bothers me. Being constantly reminded of inadequacies or issues is not fun.

But, at the end of the day, I am more devious than you and I will get it done. Scheming takes time and I get this way when I sense there’s a high probability of failure.

Don’t mind me.

I have no idea what’s come over me. I’m just.. angry. You know those days when you’re happy for no real reason, or the others when you’re down? I’m having one of those, except I’m continuously wild for no reason.

No, not wild as in show my bare chest wild (as seems to be the commonly used definition of ‘wild’ on TV), but wild as in I am furious. It’s like pure anger’s flowing all over me, and anything anyone says or does causes it to worsen. I hate it. Shut up, everyone.

No, I DON’T know what I am doing. I AM NOT prepared. I will screw up.

I DON’T NEED YOU “CHECKING IN” ON HOW UNPREPARED I AM. Shut up.

Great, if something not entirely pleasant happens to any of the three flights between the 14th and the 16th (yes, it’s that fishing far away), this outburst will be the post that resides here forever.

Forever being as long as the domain and hosting last anyway.

I cannot believe I am going to be home in a couple of days.

*Points to ultra jazzy counter thingy above*

I, obviously, haven’t finished shopping, or packing or even deciding what to pack. I haven’t seen my tickets carefully enough to figure out when it is exactly I am leaving. Even if I do, I am bound to see AM as PM or some other such thing. I don’t know how I plan to get to the airport. And I’ve already assumed I’m going to get stuff stolen from my bag in Bombay, and have exhausted my quota of being mad. Weird huh?

But I am finished with most of the work work I wanted to do. The past few days I have been quite… god like. Anything I’ve wanted to get done, I’ve gotten done. Even cooler, when I was cleaning my desk at work I found a couple of TODO lists I’d written about 8 months to a year ago. It seemed insanely ambitious at the time, and was quite depressing to look at considering I assumed I wouldn’t ever get close to finishing it.

I’m happy to announce I’ve done all that, and more.

Woah, totally extremely pleasant surprise. I just had something vaguely analogous to an orgasm, no bodily fluids being involved. People have told me they’ve had similar experiences during a particularly delectable meal. I achieved said state listening to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing some Oasis classics.

*Sniff*

I have a couple of gmail invites left to use. Would you like one?

All requests are processed in a first-come-first-serve basis, suitably fudged by how much I like you.

Giving up your first born might not be necessary.

Update: They’re long gone. Sorry.
And by sorry I mean please stop spamming me.
And by please stop, I just mean stop.

Totally weird stuff going on. I’ve had this annoying twitch in my right eyelid that doesn’t seem to want to go away. And when I asked an expert, I was informed the usual causes are lack of sleep, going overboard on caffeine, and stress. Sheesh, considering I’ve had nothing to do with any of those causes, I wonder why I’m having an issue.

Hmm, I wonder.

Anyway, trying to see the light (or rather not see light), I went to bed caffeine free before 10 last night. But that was easily the most unfruitful thing I’ve tried in ages. I just lay there, vaguely drifting off to what could be called sleep for a teeny bit, just to wake every 45 minutes or so. It was so annoying. I’d just see the clock tick (or rather blink or whatever). This happened pretty much all night, and before I knew it, it’s 9 in the morning, and instead of being all refreshed, I am all groggy.

And what’s with the weirdness in the dreams? I’m beginning to think <someone> (name withheld for privacy) is a very very angry man trapped in a pleasant enough exterior.

Although some might argue the exterior isn’t all that pleasant either.

*twitch* *twitch*

Arggh.