Infinite Improbability in Hong Kong - Stamped passport

Sometime in Mid 2004...

The heavy shower had eased out a bit when our flight took off. I got a seat in the center wing by the aisle with Santhosh right next to me in the center seat. Its not like its very cushy but the seats of Singapore Airlines flight SQ411 were pretty good by most standards. The LCD display at the back of every seat offered a choice of 5 movies from which HellBoy was the one that I picked. It was a 5.5 hrs flight and it was just after Hell Boy finished, that I must have dozed off. The inflight food was damn cool. Had a choice of the finest liquor (which I did not indulge in) and a great menu to choose from. The great menu however resulted in a rather bland saag with Chicken and rice.

Singapore Airport is really cool. Its big and huge and has travelators covering most of the airport. Travelators are like big moving belts, something of a horizontal escalator. So you cover distances pretty fast. It’s in the shape of a C where the middle of the C has glass instead of walls and you can have a dekho at the aircrafts standing outside; boarding passengers. The ends of the C house the shopping malls. Gucci, Mont Blanc, Dior, you name it – they have it. The Chanel perfume shop is such that when you pass by the place, it still smells damn cool. There is a food court and it houses every kind of food. Santhosh being a vegetarian chose upon a restaurant called the Kaveri where he took some Idli and Dosa.

The check in procedure at Singapore airport is also pretty cool. They ask you to remove everything in your pockets into a tray. Your watch, wallet, even the belt, after which you walk through the metal detector door. In case you still buzz they’ll check you, otherwise if you don’t buzz – just move on.

The flight from Singapore to HongKong is just 3.4 hours. It was a bright sunny morning in Singapore on which our flight SQ462 took off. Here the opulence was even more. The food was more exquisite and there were even larger variety of Liquor (again – No Indulgence). The food was damn cool, it was Chicken Fillet served with Chinese White Sauce. Two Cokes and the best Ice Cream I have ever had. It was WOW.

The easiest way to reach the city from the airport is the Airport Express. It’s the name given to the special train that runs between the Airport and parts of the city. The Mass Transit railway – MTR as it’s called is outstanding. The Airport Express seats are much like the seats of an aircraft. Its got a LCD behind it which houses details of what movies, exhibitions etc are running in the city. Like most things in Hong Kong it’s completely Airconditioned. The scene through which it runs is picturesque. It passes a lot through the sea and hills and has views of a lot of tall skyscrapers. A very large dock – where cargo containers were dumped over one another stretched for almost like two km alongside the railway track. The MTR railway also has the provision whereby you can use their bus which plies to most of the hotels. So we got down at Kowloon and boarded the Express Train bus to Langham Hotel (Chinese its called Long-Ting). There was booking already done in our name and I got room no 517 whereas Santhosh got room no 542. That’s just on the fifth floor. The first look into the room had really stunned me though now it looks pretty Okay. It’s got two beds, a working desk, a TV, two sitting chairs with a center table, a huge wardrobe, a bathroom and lots of table lamps. The bathroom has a shower enclosure (glass) and a tub. The water is thermostat controlled, viz that you just set the temperature and can get the water at that temperature.

The hotel is in a large shopping area called Tsim Sha Sui. Sunday evening itself we were out on the streets. I had a burger at McDonalds and Hot Dog at a Chinese fast food center. A Nestle Ice Cream which pretty much tasted like Amul Ice cream to me. We ended the day with watching “Spiderman II” at a theatre cum mall called Silvercord. The theatres at India – the multiplexes are better than these. Silvercord was extremely long with those at the back seat (that’s me) thinking that binoculars would have been a great idea.

The people of Hong Kong are very helpful. They in fact go out of their way to help you, especially if you are a foreigner. Just today morning itself the cook gave me an extremely large helping of fish and I had to ask him to stop putting anymore.

Fat Hong-Kongites are very very rare. The girls, guys are all extremely thin. They are all pretty small in height and we generally tower over them. They are all extremely fair and mostly all are pink in the face. They are so pink that I actually noticed that to write it to you. They eat anything and ducks seem to be the favourite. It’s considered a delicacy here. You have pork, beef, anything and everything. In fact today lunch time, I was almost going for a dish when I read that it’ll be served with Eels. Went for the fish rather.

Vincent Chiu, the head of Kanbay Hong Kong arrived at the hotel at 8:20 a.m. on Monday and we all boarded a taxi to HSBC. The HSBC office is three 20 odd floor buildings standing alongside each other at an angle. It’s all silver glass right up till the top with a huge HSBC logo on the top. We entered into the second building and immediately met Denny Wong (IT Project Manager) and Kelvin Tong (Assistant IT Project Manager). They were both rather warm in their welcome. We were given the Access cards and taken on the tour of the place to acquaint us with the Canteen, Rest rooms et al. Their work space is essentially a lot of White square tables with two people sitting on either side of the table. Its nothing quite like what we get to see at Kanbay. The dress code is strictly formal, and we wear Blazers to office. There is only one jack for the connection so it’s either I or Santhosh who can connect to the network at any particular time.

We were ushered into the Card Services UAT room. A part of the room has been modified to make into a training area, which means there are 9 tables arranged in a 3X3 matrix and a table facing this matrix. The table facing the matrix is the one which houses the projector and the faculty. There are close to 31 people who are taking on the training and they have a minimum work experience of 4 years with most of them averaging around 8 – 10. We ran them through the agenda of the training and told them what’s in store for them including the Base IIs.

The hours at which they work is 9:00 – 12:00. They have a 1.5 hours lunch break and then working again from 1:30 – 5:30. The first training was on Credit Card Business which got over before time, essentially because they all pretty much knew what we were telling. The next one which was on “Relating WHIRL to Card Services” was where they got their first glimpse of WHIRL and it’s from there that they started asking a lot of questions.


That was all a long time ago... in a city far far away... and I dont remember any more of it..I'll dig into my mails and probably find the rest of it...

Infinite Improbability in Hong Kong - First Weekend

July 10th 2004, 2345 hrs

I woke up around 0945 in the morning and had just hit the pillow again when Santhosh called up. Santhosh, Kiran, Kripashankar, Ashok Sathe and Vincent Chiu were in the conf call since 0900 where these guys were deciding about if we can shorten up the training period. This is being done because we got a feedback that the HSBC people think they can handle more than what we are giving them. However we may stay on course,the guys out in US and India don’t think that we should wrap up the Base I a whole one week earlier. I might be asked to stay back for those two weeks and conduct Base II.

Anyway, the call from Santhosh woke me up and the realization that it was 9:45 of my first weekend Saturday jolted me out of my sleep. The prime task that I had lined up for Saturday was to go and give the Camera for Servicing. The Nikon servicing center works as any other business office. They operate from 9:00 to 5:30 and on Saturdays from 9:00 to 12:00. Since the weekdays wouldn’t have been possible, the only option was Saturday and I was already late.

The main HONG-KONG Island and all other islands that form part of Hong-Kong are connected by all means of transport. The Taxi takes around 35 minutes of commuting time and $74. The MTR (Trams) take little over 15 minutes and take $9. The Ferry takes 12 minutes and $2.20. Besides, it’s the only one way in which you can see any thing while traveling coz all other means use below the sea tunnels.

I told Santhosh that I am going and would meet him at Star Ferry Pier at Hong Kong Central around 12:00. We had plans to go to Ocean Park.

Ocean park is an amusement park. The way to OP is to take the City Bus (Double Decker) and that’s about the only way back too. It takes $12 per trip and the entry fee to the park is $185. We entered around 1:30 p.m. and went straight for the shark Aquarium. I haven’t seen so many kinds of fishes together at one place. It was Technicolor and more. Fishes that look like birds; fishes that look grumpy, fishes that are painted purple and have a solitary yellow patch on them. Small fishes, big fishes, star fishes, miniature fishes – I don’t quite recall being so fascinated watching fishes. And then to top it all we came to the sharks. They aren’t very big; say around 7 feet in length. White sharks, black sharks, grey sharks – and you just passing through the glass ceiling where you are covered by them. The sunlight filtering through the water and then the glass and you just standing right at the center of it all.

We moved out of there and into what’s called the Ocean Theatre. They had a Dolphin Show there and it was pretty cool. Who man, you just wonder how did they manage to train animals so well. They are spinning, clapping, jumping, catapulting, anything and everything. And not just the Dolphins, they also had the Sea Lions. All in all a spectacular show.

Next were the rides and I started with the Dragon ride. Its just a roller coaster and its not very scary. You go up and down a couple of times and you are head over heels another few times but its still not very scary. The Next ride however was terrific. Its called the Abyss. They strap you to seat and take you right up, around 150-200 metres. Its three people on each side of the tower so that makes us 12 for one ride. Then they drop you, free fall for almost like 6 seconds. Takes the daylights right out of you; and it doesn’t just stop there; goes back right up again and then vroom – down. By the time I got off the ride, I had a soar throat. The two ladies on my left must have gone deaf or else these guys have capability to hear high pitch sounds.

Moving on, the next one was called the Raging River. It’s the one where you sit on a boat and they take you right on the top and then you come down on a slide. It would all have been very simple, but it just happened that the moment we sat in the boat, it started pouring. So even though half of Ocean park has a covering to save you from rain, you end up in a boat when it pours. We were drenched to the bone even before we realized it. By the time we were out of the boat we were the only two guys drenched among 100 other people. There were a few who thought that it was the ride that did that to us and quickly moved out of the queue.

That was pretty much the end of Ocean Park but the key part of our journey back was that we were drenched so badly and yet the damn bus was fully A/C.


To be continued...

Infinite Improbability : I am not going to sleep with you

I am sorry for any connotations that the Title may put across. All that I wanted to express was I hate sleeping. So when you intend to go off to sleep, I probably would still be up.

I won't be sleeping with you.

Good Night!

Infinite Improbability in San Francisco - Arrived...

She was sitting on the window seat looking out of the aircraft. I still stood there, waiting for the gentleman infront of me, to push his bags onto the overhead compartment. His seat was 19B, mine was 30B and hers, I couldnt see from where I stood. Started counting her seat, 19, 20 , 21, 22...30A. Hang on; can't be. Counted again, 20, 21, 22...30A. Woh! She must have seen me grin while I approached my seat for she grinned herself. I suppose the air hostess herself grinned, which made it the three of us who were grinning on a flight which was delayed by almost 5 hours. 3:00 am PST, the AirTran flight 52 took off from San Francisco airport and I sat down with an open laptop, the lady sleeping on the next seat; to word the three days in the Life and Times of Infinite Improbability, the best yet in the land of Uncle Sam's.

I didnt know that you are supposed to reach 45 min before the scheduled departure, if you have to check in any baggage. I reached 20 min before and I was surprised at the achievement. No amount of negotiation could assuage the old hag and the only option that was left for me was to board the flight to Washington and then go off to Oakland instead of my planned Denver - Oakland route. The airport female had told me that the possibility of my getting a seat on the Washington Oakland flight was so small it wouldn't show in a display with less than 5 digits after the decimal point. So I was pretty much prepared and even planned my stay at Washington. In fact so much so that when the flight attendant did offer me the confirmed seat on the Oakland flight, I was a triffle dissapointed.

to be continued

Infinite Improbability in Florida - Security Excess

Kale had told me that he always gets into the thorough security check every time. He was trying to find out the reasons for why it happens to him every time. I am joining the queue. On the way to and back from San Francisco – got referred to the thorough security check. Hadn’t really understood what he meant when Kale told me then, but now I understand his angst. It’s not exactly pleasurable; since you are about the only one being searched thoroughly at the airport while everybody else just passes by.

If Kale gets searched every time and I seem to be following suit, then there are two explanations – both of us are doing that same set of things which puts you into the thorough security check or its just something to do with the color of your skin. For all practical reasons, it seems it’s more to do with the latter. If you are an Asian with an Asian document for identification, you are more than likely to go through the thorough security check and that’s what sucks.

Again, the guy at SFO airport, a Chinese, was atleast a little sweet. He was courteous if nothing else while doing the checking. Did his job perfectly, maybe better than the guy at TPA, but at the end, passed on my shoes and stuff to me and tried to do some small talk, the same small talk which is the foundation stone of American pretence of courtesy.

The American on the TPA airport wasn’t even courteous.

The logic in favor of the thorough security check of course is that it keeps everybody safe, including me. That I should not be complaining because they have a right to carry out the security check and that they can do that check for any number of people as long as they think it’s necessary for the safety of the passengers.

Agreed. But why haven’t I ever found a white guy with blond hair ever subjected to the same security check. BTW, since my gate was pretty close to the security check; I did go have a look a couple of times – didn’t find anybody being checked; and didn’t catch any Indians in the queue.

Come on, I am not going to corroborate this; we all know the thorough security check is only for brown skin or muslims names. I don’t think those who have both get VISA’s to the country.

Since, I can’t do anything about it right now, there is not much that I would; right now. But somehow the Indian customs guy screwing the American’s happiness at the airport and making a lil mullah off him for all that he might be carrying; doesn’t seem very inappropriate after today. The notice on the Chinese port of entry at Shenzhen, where it said that American Passport holders will not be given visa at the port of entry while most other countries would be, now has my heartfelt endorsement and support.

When Israel, with all the terrorism that it has gone through did not resort to such craven and scared tactics; when England, with all the IRA against it did not start checking every fair looking guy’s baggage inside out; when Pakistani officials still exhibit courtesies to Indian tourists in spite of 3 wars and a painful partition – any expectation that I should understand this American scared shitless “Ooohh please , somebody is coming over to bomb me and make sure that I am exterminated” behavior is a little too much.

To put it simply, I am not going to harm anyone, I am not going to call for Jehad against them either – but let’s be pretty clear – they don’t beget any courtesy from me.

Infinite Improbability in Key West : Dil Chahta Hai

In all computer Science courses, there is a question that everybody faces at some point of time. “What is the difference between data and information?” One of the answers and a rather accurate one is – 362436 is data; 36-24-36 is information. However, you would actually find this informaton even more relevant after I tell you, that the maximum instances of this information may be found at South Beach, Miami.

Majhi, Harkaran arrived at Tampa on Thursday night in an Enterprise rented compact. Shetty who arrived in the same flight could’nt find a compact, and instead rented a Chrysler Sebring, convertible. Majhi and Karan intended to stay at Tampa and visit all the beaches for their spring break while I and another gentleman who goes by the name Koesler Kodikarra were to accompany Shetty off to a fly-by tour of Miami and Key West.

Koesler Kodikarra is from Sri Lanka; he bulges out at the center (tyre tummy), wears blue tinted shades, speaks in an ascent which is more Americanized than American English ascent and chooses to use “man” after every two words. In addition to this Kayyyyesler Kodikarra mannnnnnn, drives meaaannn in the maust mannnn awessssssssome fashion mannnn where mannnn he jusssttt scares mannn the hell mannnn out of all inhabitants mannn of the road mannnn.

We started late in the night on Friday and reached Miami after a 4 hours drive. I had never been on a road trip before but unless you do one, it doesn’t make too much sense of the American way of life. The lifelines, the Interstates and the cars just criss-crossing across the country on them. The exits, the food exits, the gas exits and all of them make a lot more sense after you’ve been on a road trip.

If you have sufficient gas, then you are more than likely to take a food exit. You would buy some food off a “drive thru” at one of the popular chains – Burger King, Mcdonalds, Subway etc and the burger combo that you buy will come with a huge glass of Pepsi or Coke or some “soda” as Koesler man refers to them. You’d be back on the Interstate rushing again towards your destination and after about 45 – 60 minutes; you would start looking again for a gas exit or a food exit. The reason –“Soda” proposes, man disposes!! Or atleast has the urge to dispose, a rather vehement urge I must add. The urge turns into an urgency if you are at some Interstate which has a lot of exits, none of which are gas exits or food exits. This was the case around the later part of our journey and it was more than 32 miles that we finally did find the rest room!

The journey was otherwise rather uneventful and we had none of those instances that strengthen your belief in god. There have been several in my life and lot many followed in this journey too – the part where Koesler man took over the reigns of the Sebring. I have always wondered if creating such instances is an act of god or the devil. I mean when Koesler drove, all of us had god’s name on our tongues, while all others who were on the road following our car, were swearing in theirs.

We checked into Wellesley Inn for our night’s stay. Slept close to 4 hours before Shetty woke us all up and we were all on our way towards Key West. For the uninformed, Key West is essentially a group of islands connected by bridges and this goes on till the very last island known as Key West. Each of these islands go by the name Key * and the bridges that connect them give you a rather scenic view while you drive on them. I don’t suppose there is a better way to enjoy the bridges than just riding on them on a slight chilly sunny morning with the wind gushing in your hair and the whole view passing infront of you. It would have seemed a lot more moviesh if somebody would have captured it from a helicopter and presented it with a Dil Chahtha Hai song playing in the back ground. The magic and modalities of traveling in a convertible is the topic of another blog entry but the essence of the last 7 statements is – the ride on those bridges was brilliant.

Key West on its own doesn’t have too much to offer, unless you are an avid water-sports freak. There is a gamut of water sports that you can do there. Water skiing, Water scooter, para-sailing, snorkeling etc. There is a tour which starts at 10:00 am and ends at 4:00 pm and allows you to do all of this. I couldn’t do that one coz we reached Key West around 12:30 pm but I generally went about the place and saw the beach etc. Tried Key Lime Pie – a not so delicious but, a pretty well known delicacy associated with the place.

We returned to Miami later that evening (reached around 1:00 am) and 5 hours later it was a jumping Koesler and a fatigued Shetty who walked out of the Inn with me for a day out in Miami.

Thats in the next blog...

Infinite Improbability - A Life Less Ordinary

Just dug into my memoirs and found out this mail that I had sent after my train journey from Hyderabad to Pune and then a subsequent flight journey from Delhi to Hyderabad
So here it is ... in a not so distant land sometime in 2002


It's not like the first time that I have tried catching a moving train.I have done that often but this was the first time when I jumped on to the door step and found the door closed. Never mind, back on the platform and on to the next door. Quick learner as I am, this time before jumping on to the step I checked the door. Closed! ... Closed! ... Closed! ... Three others trying to jump into the train by that door - I end up the fourth one.

I had seen him moving within the train from one bogey to another throughout the journey. Bald, white hair and fat glasses. Uncle was just as unconfirmed as any of us. He was on the lookout for any empty seat and I believe the departure of one of the travellers at this station had vacated a seat, the top berth. He was climbing it when I screamed at him to open the door. I am so glad that he survived the shock without getting a heart attack. Because if you would have seen the way he jumped (and subsequently fell) on my screaming, even you would have given up hope.
He kept looking at me for like 5 minutes after I had thanked him profusely. Didnt seem to like me too much or maybe it was the fat glasses which made his facade resemble that of a really distorted "Uruk Hai". He didnt say anything and quickly returned to his seat. I was back on my crumpled sheet reflecting on the events that shall enrich my memoirs when I saw his face 15 cms from mine. This time I guess I was lucky to survive without a heart attack.

"Chalo, aap meree berth per so jao". Excuse me!! Did I hear that correctly?? Ladies and gentlemen forgive me for those fat glasses on that pakoda nose belied the benign heart within. Here was this old, white haired, bald, bespecled Bengali ( I saw it from his packets later) who was offering me his seat. I ofcourse declined but he insisted that we can both share the berth.
I had my head on the interior side and the feet towards the aisle while he was reverse. The fellow was corpulent and so I was more or less contorted, lying on my side thinking of the good culture that runs across the population of my motherland, when the guy suddenly grabbed my hand.

In retrospective when I think of it, it could have been a plain grabbing of hand because he thought he was about to fall. Or it could have been for support because he thought my changing my position might result in his being thrown off the berth. However none of them seem convincing because I never really saw any position where our kind gentleman was in any peril of being dislodged off his coveted recline. The thought that seems to hold a subtle amount of conviction is still the one that had entered my mind at that moment when he grabbed my hand; that for 2 minutes of my life, I had shared a berth with a 58 year old, Bengali, homosexual!!!

And the thought at that point itself had the most stunning, life changing repercussion on me. If Superman is faster than light (I have my doubts but we shall discuss those some other time ) then he has a competition when it comes to getting off the top berth of an Indian Railway compartment. I was out of the damnplace inless than a second. Its a different thing all together that while coming down, I had almost pushed my toe into our Bengali uncles nostrils, hit his jaw with my heel, sat on top of his solar plexus, pierced his eye socket with my elbow and just for the last balancing act pulled his already scarce tresses almost out of his scalp.

An hour later, when some station saw an exodus of substantial number of passengers I had a berth to myself, a good three compartments away from our Bengali uncles. The rest of the journey passed in a reverie and at 1:30pm when I finally did enter the office, I entered with my American client who was apologising for not having made it in the morning because she was kept busy with other meetings.

So there ended the journey and so should this travelogue. But just before I let you off, I might as well add a bit about my recent flight to Delhi.

I had not told anybody at the office (except two friends) and it was decided that my friend would justtell the Proj manager that Vikram is suffering from a excruciating pain owing to the friendly neighbourhood wisdom tooth and so he shall not be coming. I had sneaked out of the office making it as inconspicous as any on a Thursday evening and landed in Delhi
without any such thing as what comprised the earlier part of this mail. The fact that I shared the airplane seat with another Wilco Team Leader is another thing, infact not even quite mentioning.

What most definitely is worth mentioning is that while on the morning 5:50 flight from Delhi to Hyderabad, where I sat between some well dressed gentleman and the same Wilco TL, I was privy to the most alluring, magnificent sight I have ever seen. It was the morning sun rays which glistened on the white clouds. Till horizon and beyond it was just a white snowy, mountaneous land which sparkled and glimmered. And to think of it, both my neighbours were fast asleep. For them it might have been a very ordinary, prosaic sight, for me it was the kingdom of the fairies. For me it was just another beautiful day in a life less ordinary!

And ahh, the fact that I almost missed my flight, that my luggage weighed twice the stipulated amount, that it was the only one which did not get checked in and reached me 12 hours later, that my computer (part of the luggage) reached me with the processor hanging out of the motherboard, that the incabin overhead compartment over my seat didnt open and when it did it a huge bag missed the grey haired aunty just infront of our seat by a whisker were some of those banal, trite occurances that generally happen with me.

So long then people,and just before I end, I may as well add that every word which featured in this 'travailogue' is true, every one of them happened, infact more than just these happened :).

ciao,
Vikram