Tirupati trip, yet again

This is the third time I walked up the hill from Tirupati to Tirumala. This trip however secured a very special place for itself in the list of my memories. We covered it in the shortest time of 4.5 hours. Surprisingly it seemed less tiring comparatively. Not sure whether the reason is due to the fact that I am pretty much acquainted with the hill or the vibrant energy of complacency in walking hand in hand with my life partner did the magic.

Being considerate to all the walking pilgrims, they gave a direct darshan ticket, which promises a 'very quick' darshan. Hold on to your curiosity till I tell u what this quick practically means. Tirumala, such a sacred place it is. I don't know if the way people and the crowd are being managed is the best that could be done, considering the huge numbers of pilgrims who visit the temple every day or if there are better ways of managing. There were two queues there at the vaikuntam entrance - one for the sheeghra (Rs.300/-) and one for the pilgrims who walked up the hill. Both the queues were not moving by the time we reached there. The in-charge, when asked about the timings when the queues will be released said that the former will be opened at 9PM whereas the later would be opened at 8PM and will take very less time for the darshan and will be quick and direct. Thanks to him, the rest of our relatives deferred the darshan to the following day. Vijay and I joined the direct darshan line at 8PM since both of us had the quick darshan tickets.

The sheeghra darshan queue was opened at 8:15PM and the other line where both of us queued up was released only at 8:45PM. Not sure if this was a sudden change or the in-charge who gave us the information misguided us either deliberately or unknowingly. No announcements what so ever happen there. The people are always left behind with various question marks on their faces, and the rumors spreading like a grape-yard. I don't know if the management really wants it this way or would it cost too much to set up the infrastructure for an announcement system that it is not affordable.

Isn't temple supposed to be unbiased and impartial and treat all the people - the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterates, the class and the mass in the same way? If an VIP is visiting the temple, he or she is doing it for his or her own interest. Hence, this is considered as his personal work. How ethical is it for him to stop the entire crowd (atleast a few thousands) for almost half an hour for his own personal interest of visiting the God at peace all alone?? Atleast, if there is a set time which says, from so and so time to so and so time(could span for half an hour to one hour) all the lines will be held, if there is a VIP visiting the temple then, which is announced and documented and known to the public that is understandable. But, its truely irksome if the whole line has to just wait at which ever time whoever comes with a VIP tag.

Amidst all this, there was a group of around 10 people who spoke in a native accent of Kannada, who came with the sole aim of pushing the people ahead of them forward and drive a few kids to cry out of suffocation and disturb the peace of the entire line. I tried out my Kannada skills to tell them not to rush and that they wont gain anything more than10 minutes by thrashing all the people around. Instead, they can cooperate and all of us can have a peaceful time. All my efforts proved futile. Not sure if my Kannada was that bad or their determination was that strong. Thanks to the management for making only 10 percent of the fans hanging there functional. Not sure if the rest of them are really non functional due to some issue or were not switched on with any definite intention. Vijay tried to tell a few guys out there to turn the fans on at the very least and that will be a big favor to all of us. They listened to him patiently and left on their way with zero action towards the petition. The only thing that I don't like about Tirumala temple is the fact that there is absolutely NO transparency what so ever. Is there any one at all who can question the management and the way things are being handled? If yes, are they really doing it? or should we wake them up and remind them of their duty?

We somehow managed through and got across being pushed from all the sides. There are a few people from TTD staff standing right in front of the Lord, who are trained for dragging people and throwing them aside without even bothering whether they have fallen down and broken any of their parts or have balanced and intact. If the crowd is peaceful, they cannot digest that fact. They have to create a havoc by taking charge of pushing people aside and creating a chaotic atmosphere., without which their day becomes incomplete. By God's grace, we had a decently good darshan at about 11:55PM. Well, that was a quick darshan with great regards and concerns to the pilgrims who walked up the hill for all of you who dint know what a quick darshan meant(4 complete hours).

Its really high time some one took the initiative of waking up all the people who have the authority of questioning things and thus helping a great deal with a few small amendments which can mean a lot to the people.

Almost died!

Have u ever had this experience of very narrowly escaping death??? I had it on 4th June 2010 with the grace of the captain in Singapore airlines from Singapore to Bangalore. It was a huge aircraft with lots of people in it. The takeoff at Singapore was pretty smooth. I was enjoying the ride while watching their latest collection of movies - Karthik calling Karthik and Alice in the wonderland., till the captain announced that we would be landing in the next 20 mins and asked the cabin crew to prepare for the landing, which included snatching away all our headphones.

While the total attention was on the flight and its landing, there was a free fall of the flight for a few seconds(I guess a few seconds.. dont even remember how long it was for). The people in the flight started shouting in their native languages. I heard someone shouting in telugu - 'Ayyo.. Padipothundhi flight. awww... ', which means 'Oops.. the flight lost it balance and is falling down.. awww...'. Then the balance was maintained and before even people could come out of the shock, there was another free fall within a few secconds.. This time, I also shouted. My heart was almost in my hand. I dont even know what was the pulse rate. It was beating very rapidly. I just dint know what to do? I am going to die miserably with a free fall from atleast a thousand metres. How do I react? I was looking for someone from the cabin crew. None of them were around. Was wondering if I should pull out my life jacket from under the seat and jump out of the emergency door. My mind was blank. All I could utter was - 'Om Namo Narayanaya'. The flight had so many people - it had kids, young people like me and old people. If I got so scared, I dont have to tell you about the rest of the categories.

With all this havoc, the pilot continued the flight without even bothering to announce whether we will all land in single pieces on this mother Earth, still in a position to breathe its air... or if we are in danger. He dint give a damn about all the chaos and fear of the crowd. If you are flying 5 mins behind the schedule, that makes an announcement. If you are taking off 2 mins late due to a lot of aircrafts waiting for take off before you, that becomes another announcement. If there is turbulence in the atm, there will be yet another disturbance when you are watching a movie due to their announcement. When such things which really wont make a difference or which wont mean much are being announced, its really strange that people are left to die with fear and no one made a mention of such a situation.. If this is the case with Singapore airlines, dont even ask me about the rest of the airlines.

Now, I still dont know whether he was practising for some aircraft games on the sky with all of us in it, or whether it was really unavoidable and he had to take a free fall twice due to whatever conditions. The landing was too bad. It was so rash. But we were all glad that we had indeed landed with all parts intact. With the increasing number of planes and the airlines, is the quality proportionately decreasing? With the flight accidents and misfortunes going up rapidly, are enough measures being taken to prevent them or are the lessons just limited as grass for the media to feed on and people to talk about for a few days???

Red bus: Epitome of pathetic customer service!

With deep regrets I write this blog today.. for the simple fact that Red bus was a start up by BITSians. As a BITSian, its quite natural to be a bit partial to your own college.. I had a very bad customer service from them, this not being the first one, but the one that made me reach the yield point/breaking point. Below is the mail that I had sent to their customer service.. I honestly dont know if this means anything to them.. or if they even care about this. But, I want it give it my best shot to let them know that they were bad and they do need improvement. If they already knew it and decided not to bother about it, well, God save them.. because they will be left with no more customers on one fine day. Its high time they realize the fact - ' If you dont take care of the customers, someone else will'

To whoever it may concern,

I know that red bus has been started by BITSians. As a BITSian, I expect atleast some standards to be maintained. The customer service is worst than poor.

I last called the redbus in Bangalore to get 3 tickets booked(1 for forward journey and 2 for return). Inspite of repeatedly confirming the return date, I received a message on my mobile mentioning the confirmation of the ticket for a wrong date. I had to call back again and wait endlessly for someone to answer my call for something which is the fault of the red bus service person, who ever booked the ticket. Its a shear time waste to me. Instead of going into the website of the private bus company, say kesinesi directly and booking the ticket, the only reason why I go through red bus is to save some time in entering all the details over their website. However, my purpose is not solved and my time was even wasted.

After booking the ticket, I told very specifically that I need the ticket delived on the same day, because I was flying to Indonesia the next day, which is a sunday and is holiday for red bus. I had booked my tickets on a saturday morning and given a whole lead time of 1 day. I dint get the tickets delivered. I was promised that the soft copy of the tickets will be delivered after the hard copy is handed over. I organized one of my friends to pay the money and collect the tickets. I dint receive any soft copy of the tickets. My friend again called up and requested them to send across my tickets to my email ID. They still dint! I dont understand what kind of a customer service this is? If you cannot deliver, please admit in advance so that I will look for alternatives.

I really don’t know if this email means anything to you guys.. But I just want to let u know that u lost your good will… Definitely, I will never book with red bus again after all this inconvenience caused not only to me, but my friend at India who has been following up for me and wasting his time. I will communicate this experience with all my friends in the corporate world and make sure that they dont face similar experience by choosing red bus.. and waste their valuable time..

one more..

I dont know when it actually happened
Still wondering, not able to comprehend
Not everything can really be reasoned

with all my fears lessened
the heart feels more lightened
and the life seems more brightened

With the days now flattened
the feelings of bliss in me burgeoned
with a spark that sharply glistened

With my heart more widened
I welcome this change fecund
and have a new life Summoned

Just an attempt..

Sometimes you dont know why
The only limit is the sky
For the wings of love to fly!

The rivers might dry,
but the spirits always high..
The best way you try,
to avoid every sigh!!

The smallest of the ply
gives boundless joy
When done for thy!

Jakarta

Very reluctantly I packed my bag to the last destination of the project, Indonesia! I heard volumes about the place, none of which motivated me towards the advent of the journey. If you have to do, you have to! This was one such trip, where I marched ahead because I had to. Having noted a couple of Indian eat outs, I decided not to roam around the place much. I reached the airport at 11:30AM. After getting the visa on arrival, I was wondering where the baggage chain is.. without realizing that I need to go through the immigration. The line for the immigration seemed endless. No wonder it took 2 hrs to finish the process and come out of the airport.

After a tough competition between the two parties, with my heavy eyes waiting to catch some sleep at one end and heaps of work at office not willing to let me rest at the other end, needless to say that the former lost the battle and I was at work by 3:00PM. But the war continued in the office and finally at 7:30PM it reached the yield point when the hunger in my stomach also aided my sleepy eyes. I walked across the street to a restaurant called "Ganesha", which is around 10 minutes walk from my office. Contrary to Singapore and Taiwan, this place is devoid of zebra crossing. I had to run past the junction to reach the other end safely. At the other end, there was a typical "awara" looking guy sitting on his bike and calling me towards him. I ignored him and reached the restaurant. I ordered a veg biryani and got it packed and set on my way back to the hotel so that I can relish my dinner taking my own sweet time.

At every 20 foot distance, there are a group of guys sitting on the bikes or standing next to them and trying to call me - 'hello miss!'. I ignored them all and walked as fast as I could to my hotel. It was a very different experience to have on the first day of your stay at any country. With all that I heard about this place, this wierd encounter made me dislike this place further. Had my veg biryani with various thoughts running in my head. I went to bed pretty early, giving the credit of the hard earned battle to my eyes.

Just like the popular news channels selling and reselling the same news again and again early in the morning till the viewers have it all in their heads word by word, I shared my experience with a few of my colleagues at office. One of them enlightened me - "Did u know something? Bikes are a mode of transportation here, just like the auto rickshaws in India. Those guys would have called you thinking you to be a prospective passenger to them - 90% probability. However, please dont go alone on the streets late in the night". Late in the night??? and 7:30 PM!! I was dumbstruck!

Hope!

After losing all the hopes on going Back to India anytime before 4th June, I just gave it a try and requested to go to India over this weekend. To my surprise, the stake holders confirmed that I am not required at Indonesia before monday(24/05/2010). I really was on cloud 9. I informed all the people that I knew that I am coming over to India over the weekend. My excitement knew no bounds yesterday with the thought that I will be travelling home(Hyd) instead of Bangalore. I am really not exaggerating when i say that I almost started to fly in the air with the excitement. You wont believe me if I tell you that I had spent two whole hours in packing the suitcase 'back home'!Dint realize it myself!

Knowing the fact that it is a very short trip of 2 days, I started calculating the number of hours that I would be home and the various activities that I need to do - discuss about MY engagement arrangements, finish the left over shopping, catch up with a few people, the list goes on. I estimated time for each of these and was wondering if I would be left with any 'free' time as such! well, while I am still on the major planning spree, the travel desk at my company gave me a flabbergasting news! - "The tickets.... are not yet confirmed! Its on waiting list.. It wont be possible to get them confirmed! We will try our best." Try your best??!!? But I am psychologically prepared! It would have been a different case if I weren't informed yesterday that I could go to India. After enrooting the hopes in me, its tough to accept the change..

I truely want to go back..I always believed in - 'If you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it'. I should be in the flight by this time tomorrow if things go as per my expectations. I am still sitting here and blogging holding bundles of uncertainity behind. I am filled with endless hope though the boat is drifting towards hopeless end. And tell u what? As I just finished the sentence before this, the pop up on the task bar indicated the arrival of a new mail in my inbox. Guess who it is from? Its from the travel desk...As I opened the mail, I was probably more curious than u are while reading this.. whether it will be a confirmation mail saying that the tickets are not obtained? or will it be the reality to my hope? And.. Yes!! my ticket is confirmed to Bangalore, though not Hyderabad. I will be travelling on a different airlines, with a delay of 3 hours to expected time! :) :) :)