A Plain (Pain) Trip

Recently I was on a jumpy flight from Paris to Mumbai. The flight was delayed (as usual) and I had to spend a lot of time at Charles De Gaulle airport (motto : We've got the gaul!)
The French language is funny for a person who has spent his life speaking languages like Marathi and Hindi, where the word is pronounced as a combination of the alphabets. As in, the word is pronounced as the individual alphabets in a sequence. The French language disregards many of the alphabet and consequently, this leads to a lot of confusion for travellers. Consider the prime example of Champs Elysees which is pronounced as Shawz Elize (I am not sure if I have got that right. Try searching for "pronunciation of Champs Elysees" on google.)

So, anyway, coming back to the flight. As usual, I have managed to stray from the topic at hand. I was on my way back to Mumbai after attending an International Trade Fair called (really!) BALLS. This was a convention for Steel Ball Bearing Manufacturers (motto : We've got the world by the balls!) And, as I've already stated, this flight was jumpy. This caused some kids on the flight... Correction, this caused all the kids (and there was a large number of them) to feel queasy and loud. In case you don't know what feeling loud is like, try travelling on a jumpy flight with atleast twenty three children below the age of eight. Believe me, you will need hearing aids for the rest of your life. The damage caused to my ear drums was more severe than the one I had sustained when a friend forced me to attend a rock concert without ear muffs on.

If there was anything worse than the jumpy kids, who were feeling loud, it had to be their parents. Most of the parents were sound asleep and some of them even had the gall to snore loudly! It was outrageous. They should have probably been soothing their children instead of getting some shut eye. Some of them were holding whispered conversations. I can imagine what they might have been talking about.

Wife : "Honey, Ashley is at it again. She is shouting her lungs out. All the passengers are staring at us. Why don't we do something?"
Husband : "Yes. Get some sleep. And try snoring. We wouldn't want the passengers to feel deprived, would we? They are probably still wondering why we aren't asleep. If we don't fall asleep soon, they will personally come over and ensure that we are asleep, so that they can then grind their respective teeth in seething frustration over their inability to reduce the amount of noise on this plane"

Most of the "Regular Flying" customers were already grinding their teeth. They were probably used to this kind of a thing. I wasn't. It's not everyday that you get to visit Paris to see BALLS. I was really upset and decided to give atleast one parent of a jumpy child a piece of my mind.

Me : "Would you please quieten your child?"

Parent Of Rowdy Kid (PORK) : "Snore..."

Me : "Excuse me! I am talking to you. Please ensure that your child is seated and that he isn't making any noise. It's causing damned inconvenience to the other passengers..."

PORK : "Are you the airhostess? Oh, you are an airhost, eh? Please get me a glass of water. Thank you"

Me : "I am not the airhost or airhostess or the pilot. I am just an inconvenienced passenger and I am here to ask you to silence your child..."

PORK (angrily): "You woke ME up to tell me THAT!"

Me : "Well, I am sorry for that. But just in case you haven't noticed, nobody else is getting any sleep, thanks to your ward"

PORK : "So? What do you suggest?"

Me : "I suggest that you use the paper napkins the nice flight attendants have given and shove them into his mouth to stop him from shouting out loud. Or you could try strangling him with the beautiful necklace your wife is wearing..."

PORK (handing me the necklace) : "Good. You go ahead and do it. And when you are done, get me the glass of water... Snore..."

This left me feeling stupid and a bit richer, as I now held a pearl necklace in my hand. But money wasn't on my mind at that particular point of time. Sleep was. And the darned kids were ruining my forty winks. In a final fit of rage and frustration, I called the flight attendant.

Me : "Could you please take these kids someplace else and have them make a little less noise?"

Flight ATtendanT (FATT): "I am sorry sir, that is impossible to do"

Me : "Impossible? Surely, you have been trained to handle this sort of stuff?"

FATT : "Sir, the noise of the kids is soothing to the captain. He prefers it to the whine of the turbine. As it is, there was some problem with the turbines and he has had to shut them down. One hell of a noise they were making. As long as the kids are shouting, all the passengers will focus their energies on finding a way to mutilate the vocal chords of these kids and nobody will realise that the plane is going down. In the meantime, the pilot can radio the Air Traffic Controller and ask for directions to use his and our parachutes. Have a nice flight, Sir!"

THE END?

Continuation sheet

In Engineering Design, whenever you have to continue your calculations, you use the continuation sheet. My mind is still on the same page as yesterday, but there are many thoughts that I would still like to pen down. So, consider this article as a continuation from where I left off yesterday.

From my previous article, you will recall (if you don't recall, scroll down the page and read the previous article, you dummy! Duh! :-)) I was speaking about the reservation issue. These days, with the rising population of India and the increased per capita income, it has become virtually impossible for anyone to get a train reservation. No, no! Not that reservation! I was just kidding, the point that was to be made is about reservation quotas. These days, even in railways, you have these reservation quotas. It's really funny. The day after they introduce these quotas, we will see three toilets (instead of the usual two) in each coach of long distance trains. One Indian style, one Western style and one with the words RESERVED printed on it's doors. Imagine the plight of the foreign long distance traveller who MUST visit the loo and finds that only the RESERVED toilet is vacant. He has no option but to rush in and relieve himself. This is when the vigilant railway officers (again, belonging to the backward classes) will break in and ask him just what the hell does he think he is doing. He will probably be asked to first produce proof that he is from the backward community and then he will be asked a million questions about his ancestors, such as if they were ever tortured, mutilated, fondled, called racist names, etc etc, by the upper caste classes. Then they will move on to asking him about his financial well-being and whether he thinks he can apply for EBC scholarship. Of course, the foreigner doesn't fit in any of this, therefore, he is fitted out of the toilet. Rather, he is lifted out of the toilet. But then, this is all crap (if you get my drift) and this is all just a figment of my imagination. I should stop writing about such obscene and gross things. There are more important issues to think about, such as the possible outbreaks of violence between pro-reservation and anti-reservation people, whether the outcome of this move will indeed be a shining India, what is going to be served for lunch, whether I will be successful in implementing my new diet strategy, whether the movie The DaVinci Code will change christianity as we know it. So many important things to think of than simply talking about foreginers shitting in RESERVED toilets! :-)

I know, I know. I have drifted from the topic at hand. But I sincerely believe that whatever the leaders of the nation are doing is really in the best interests of the nation! I am sure that pretty soon we are going to see a really bright and shining India. I am sure I will appreciate it from the United States of America. I have already applied for citizenship there! ;-)

The Real Thing

I agree. The previous post was bad. However, it is better to read such poorly written blogs than to satiate your daily appetite for some reading, with the dismal news that reservation for backward classes has now been increased to 200%, meaning that even the seats that don't exist are reserved for backward class people, further meaning that open category or general category people cannot even dream about admission to higher education. Whew!

Okay, fine! I was kidding. The reservation has not been increased to 200%, it still lies at a miserly 189%. This figure was derived by the politicians using highly mathematical operations, considering the various populations in the country, their economic status and above all, their votability i.e. the fraction of the population that is above 18 years of age. The actual figure came out to be 180%, but they put in the extra nine percent for good measure.

Most of my articles are the source of some minor controversies. I have irked females, guy gays, lesbians, some guy lesbians, politicians, their dogs, gay politicians dogs', gay dogs of politicians. To summarise, I have irked a lot of people with my blog articles. I don't intend to irk the minority community with this article. I don't have anything against them. The reason that they are fooled by the politicians gimmicks is because they are uneducated. Imagine a backward caste person (who doesn't even have a primary education) hearing about the increase in the reservation quota. "Hey!", he will think, "That's a great move! I don't have a primary education, but I might be able to get admission to Medical College! I probably will have to sell my land for affording the education, but what the heck! I will have a Dr. before my name!" As has been oft repeated, backward category (if I may dare use the word. I am not racist, its just that I am not aware of the "politically" correct way of calling these people) people require financial aid rather than reservations. They require financial aid for primary and secondary education, dammit! Why are you offering them more seats at the higher education level? Teach them the basics first and make them independent. But then, the electoral outcomes will be disastrous, won't they?

Hmm... It feels good to write after all these days. I am not entirely happy with the outcome of this article. Not entirely funny, but then there is seriously very little humour to be found in such a grave issue anyway. I am so glad to have gotten back to publishing that I don't care if some pro-reservation guy/gal (no gender bias in my language! :-)) calls me up in the middle of the night because my article has irked him/her. That I can handle. As I have handled the calls of the females, guy gays, lesbians, some guy lesbians, politicians, their dogs, gay politicians dogs', gay dogs of politicians.

Been gone a long time

I know, I know. I have been gone a long time. Regular readers (as if there was a large number of them in the first place) had been complaining to me about the dismal lack of activity on my blog page. They said that life had become really boring and they needed their source of booger humour back. I couldn't disappoint them. So, here I am, back with a bang!

BANG!