To Trichy... Part 1.

I love adventurous travels. But when its of this order I do panic. After all I am human too!

I was recently invited to the National Institute of Technology in Trichy to conduct a photography workshop. The trip to India was to be a short one. Bare 5 days in India. So going home was out of the question.

I left the US to India on this short trip with a blog entry on the other blog, and the title was “Where travel is an adventure”, and it’s funny how these small-small things that you say actually comes true! You just sit and are amused at the thought that was passing through your head when you had written that in the first place. What was surprising here was that uncle God decided to give me the dose of adventure right from the time I stepped out of the home here in the US.

The flight from Indianapolis to Newark had been delayed. This way the one-hour stopover time in Newark was too short a time to let me board my other flight from the other terminal. And as a result of this I panicked. I started making all plans about what to do, where to do, whom to talk to etc if I did not reach in time. And then suddenly I realized, that the tension was doing no good. So I just let it go and decided to take things as they came along.

In-spite of the delay we actually touched down in Newark a few minutes before schedule time. It amazed me. How the pilot did it, or was it deliberate on the part of the airlines company was not clear, and neither did I worry now. I was just glad that we had made it in time. But wait… it was not over yet.

The gate at which my flight was to taxi was blocked by another flight. As a result of which we ended up waiting on the runway, inside the flight, for around forty minutes. And as it is with any normal person, tension and fear started to creep in again. I pressed the attendant call button. I was hoping that I could somehow ask her if the connecting flight was delayed, or if she or someone could actually get the flight delayed. What was I thinking? Was I a president or something? She picked up the announcing phone and said she could not come, as the rules did not allow people to move around in such a situation. And then I felt around 100 eyes staring at me. I wondered if I had done something that was a crime or too daunting.

So here again, I just thought to let it go, and will think what to do once I was off this plane.
The flight checked in to some other gate and I ran to the other terminal. Thank god, the flight to India that I was to board was a few minutes late. I was all smiling-smiling when I boarded the flight. After all I was going to India. A place that holds a place that no other place will be able to do so.

The worrying and the running around had made me hungry. So now I thought I could just grab the meal that would allow to sleep and have some peace. Someone had mentioned that the food in Continental was good.

I was lost in my thoughts on the food and the things I will do when I land in India, when an announcement decided to spoil the party. The captain was announcing a hard drive failure! Hello... this is America.. the most advanced country on the planet... these things are unheard of here! Did I hear it correctly? Unfortunately yes.
But wait .. there was more! Every hard drive is accompanied with one black box and if either one stops working, both have to be replaced.

The captain said that the engineers were repairing it. I wondered if it was a tech geek from India who was doing it, but then I understand that in these times of recession I should not even think about such things!

Then came the other dreaded announcement. The hard disk has been replaced, and the black box too. They were supposed to check it, and that testing process would take another 40 long minutes.

The law professor beside me, in the flight was getting equally frustrated. It was his first time going to India, and my tip to him. Please don't compare the two places and you will enjoy the place. Enjoy the hospitality. :)

I drifted off to sleep and was woken up after a while. I thought wow that 15 hours passed quickly! Unfortunately not. It was the waitress serving meals.

Netra was sleeping away from me in the flight, and I hope she was getting some good rest. I knew she was going to have a hectic schedule in India too. Little did we both know that there was something else in store for us... when we touched down there.

To be continued...