The missing 'I'

I got my boarding pass for my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Mexico at Chennai itself. I had a look and both the boarding passes in my hand, just to see where I'm gonna sit, cauz I had requested for an aisle seat. For the first flight the seat was 51D & for the second one it was 49K. Given that there are a total of 10 seats in a row in the economy class of a Lufthansa Boing (some model) plane, I got that for the first flight the seat is actually an aisle seat. A, B, C & then D ... ok its an aisle seat. Now I started counting for the second flight. A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I & then J. That sums up to 10. But the seat allotted to me as 49K. How is this possible? I counted the sequence again in my head, at least 3 more times, just to be sure. But each time, to my surprise, it ended at J.

I thought of going back to the counter and asking the guy if there was some mistake. But then I thought maybe this is the row at the end or something where they do actually have an "K" labeled seat. I got into my first flight and thought of searching for 49K before finding out my actual seat. As I boarded the plane and reached the economy class, I realized that they don't actually have an "I" seat. The sequence is - A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,J & then K. The "I" was missing. I had been traveling by the same airline, by the same plane, for the past 8 times. I was amazed that how come I never noticed this before.

Did anyone of you know about this missing "I"? Is it only in Lufthansa or they ate it up in other airlines too?

Innovative cooking

I went out with some friends in the morning and returned pretty much at lunch time. Tired from the whole roaming around and my stomach screaming for some food, I really wasn't in a mood to do some time consuming cooking. Being a Good Friday, the shops were closed for the holiday and I couldn't order something from the nearby Subway too. So all I had was hardly 10 minutes to figure out what edible can I make out of the things I have in the fridge. Given the limited resources which would qualify for a quick meal, I made up this - Steaming corn with scrambled eggs.

Recipe (Serves 2, if I'm not one of them)
Eggs - 2
American corn kernels - 200gms
Green chilies - 2
Lemon - 1
Black pepper powder
Butter - 1 spoon
Onions - 1

Boil the corn kernels and mix the butter & lemon juice in it. Fry the chopped onions and chopped chilies in a separate frying pan. When the onions are brown, break the eggs and pour them into the pan to make a mess. Once the scrambled eggs are ready, add the pre-prepared (sounds inappropriate, but who cares) corn to the pan. Cook for 10 minutes. Add some ketchup and salt to taste. Serve steaming hot along with some orange juice & pickle.

So, I did all this and had a heart warming meal. It came out really delicious I tell you. Hunger does lead to innovation.

P.S - By the time I took this photo, it went cold, so I had to heat it up again in the microwave :)

Loupe

There is a small Taco shop outside my erstwhile office in Volkswagen. Given its vicinity to the office and the nice quality of food that it provides, you can see long queues standing outside this roadside stall at lunch time. Though being a vegetarian, I wasn’t able to savor most of the things served at the place; I was a regular customer, having something he prepared exclusively for me; Tacos filled with rice potatoes, chilies & beans.

Coming back to the subject, “Loupe” is the guy who owns this shop. Majority of people in Mexico don’t know English. Even many people who are working for big banks & are at considerably high positions face much difficulty speaking in English. But to my surprise, Loupe was more fluent in English than any other Mexican I have met till date. My project manager in Mexico also speaks good English, but he too wasn’t any match to Loupe. This was the fact which made me so comfortable going and having food at the place. Because I was sure that he would understand what exactly I need. There was something in his appearance which made me have a sense of familiarity with him. Though I never talked much to him, given his busy work conditions, we knew each other well due to my daily visits at the place.

He was so prompt in his work, that you could actually see the difference when he was not around. While he took hardly 10 minutes to serve to a queue of 10+ people, his assistant who would fill up for him in his absence would make you wait for ages. Given the liking for the food and the server too, my last day in Volkswagen was not that pleasant. I knew I wont be coming here any longer to have this food or to meet this guy. So, after the peak business time, I went and talked to him. I asked him for a photograph for which he readily agreed. I wanted to give something to him, just as a memento. Giving money seemed very impersonal to me. After a lot of thinking, I took out a 50 rupee note from my pocket (An Indian currency note) and handed over to him. I told him. “This is for you & it is from India”. He gave me a nice smile and accepted my gift. I too was content in giving him something which will hold some value and will be peculiarly related to me.

Its been around 3 months since this happened. I wanted to post this for a long time but never got enough time. Now that I am back in Mexico, I am planning to go to Puebla and meet him again and of course taste those Tacos once again.

You can see him at this post on my image blog.

The selfish self

Some philosophers have declared selfishness as a righteous virtue for a person to possess. They say that selfishness is compulsory for a man to survive in the society. Closely thought, it sounds almost true. Each one of us is selfish in some respect. At one point or the other, we keep our interest and happiness at the top and then weigh everything against it. It happens so naturally that we barely realize it. One such example of being selfish is “falling to your temptations”

We might not pay heed to our religious scriptures since we are now living in a modern society, but somehow lately, I have started seeing a lot of relevance in things which I have read somewhere in some religious text. The most striking example of them all is the shloka (verse) in Geeta where Lord Krishna exemplifies the human life as a chariot of horses with the horses signifying the senses. He tells Arjuna that the greatest virtue which a man needs to possess in order to actually have a life is to keep in control the horses of this chariot, which incidentally is the hardest thing to do. The person who has control over his senses has control over everything in his life.

I often find myself falling to my temptations. I just give up to my needs, which in the present context symbolizes both selfishness & lack of self control. Its not that I always regret doing that but the regret somehow surfaces at a later stage. These temptations come in various different forms, some of them so petty that you will hardly see them as one. But in the end I know that I just couldn’t resist the urge. This is actually the time to pull the reigns of the horses. To keep them from wandering away wherever they want to. But as most good things in life are, its really tough to do.

Sometimes these temptations take a monstrous form and threaten to ruin everything you have. You detest yourself for being so weak and for hurting many kind souls just because you were not strong enough. At that time you realize how out of control your own self has gone. You can do nothing but brood over it.

All this may sound a bit deviated from the point at which the post started, but observing closely, it is just another dimension to being selfish.

The horror show

Just imagine :-

Its 4 in the morning & you are deep in sleep. The whole house is covered under a sheet of darkness with a small zero watt night bulb spreading some faint green light in the other room.Suddenly one of your room-mates who is sleeping in the same room next to you starts screaming like hell. You have absolutely no idea what’s happening when you see him screaming and running around in the room. You are terrified as if you are in a bad dream when you hear your other room-mate screaming too. A second later you find yourself trying to shout as loud as possible & ask them that what the hell is happening. A moment later the light in the room is switched on and all the three faces in the room are white as a ghost. You try to figure out whats happening when the guy who started screaming first tells you that something is there in the room, most probably a snake, which just went over his right hand and crossed the bed towards the side on which you were sleeping. You don’t know what to say as you are horrified, but still you try to lighten the atmosphere by giggling a bit and furiously checking if really something is there under any of the pillows or mattresses. After 2 minutes of stumbling things here and there it’s finally clear that nothing is there in the room. No one knows what to say as the sudden shock is still getting absorbed.

This was the early morning horror show which happened just two and a half hours back right here in my house. Once the nerves were settled, we decided to switch off the lights again and sleep. Everyone behaved as if it was just a small nightmare and nothing happened. Seeing them lying down quietly on their beds, I thought its only me who is feeling so terrified – still. Finally when I could no longer stand the darkness and the terrible feeling of horror killing me from inside, I announced that now its not possible for me to sleep and I am switching on the lights and going to sit in the other room. It was as if we were just waiting for one among three of us to say that. The next minute we found ourselves sitting in front of the computer and trying to calm ourselves by watching a movie (Jab we met).

I could still feel the chill running down my spine. I was just not able to rise above what has just happened. Suddenly weird things started crossing my mind – how will I sleep in the darkness from tomorrow onwards? – How the hell will I manage alone in the hotel room in Mexico where I would be going in a week from now? – what if really something is there in the house which would suddenly show up once we switch off the lights again? In another half an hour the other two couldn’t bear their heavy heads anymore and retired to the bed with me sitting alone in the other room watching that movie. It was around five in the morning and it was still dark outside. I was waiting for the light to break. I was feeling something very freaky inside me. I just couldn’t stop being afraid – afraid of what I really didn’t know. I decided to pen it down just to extinguish my anxiety and I opened up an empty word document and started writing. As I wrote the first few lines which you can read above, I was practically reliving the entire episode.Once again the fear made its entry and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I minimized the word window and started watching the movie again. Every 5 minutes I was trying to find a hint of light outside the partially covered window at the back of my room. Finally at 6:20 AM the movie got finished and it was bright outside. I opened the window, opened the front door and decided to finish what I had started.

Its fully bright outside now & both my friends are peacefully sleeping in the other room. But somehow I am not able to get over with it. Just thinking about what happened I can virtually hear that horrific screaming inside my head right now. Goddddd – I do have a weak heart.