The longest day in my life!

Ever wondered if you could see sunlight for a continuous stretch of 20 hours!? It just happened to me, well it has happened to many other people as well. Its nothing new trust me! When you take a flight to US, it happens that way. :-)

I was on my 2nd international flight, the first one being the one to Singapore that hardly lasted 4 hours. This was loooooong! Had three legs, and in which one leg was further broken into two.

The complete itinerary was as follows

Kolkata --- AI 101 --- New Delhi ---- AI127--- Frankfurt ---AI127----- Chicago ----AA1489 --- Tucson


I saw daylight at Frankfurt; the flight reached at 6:30 am local time and since then it was day for the next 20 hours!! We had to wait in the transit room at Frankfurt for 3 hours before the flight was ready for the next broken leg over the Atlantic. I was getting thrilled already to have flown over Europe and landed, no matter for how much less time! The greenery of Frankfurt was charming.

It was nearing mid day at Frankfurt when we flew off to Chicago. It was supposed to be an eight hour flight, and I started inventing ways to avoid jet lag and stuff. Slept for sometime, watched one Hindi movie, one Bengali movie. And a couple of music videos. And then since I didn’t manage to get a window seat (well I got one but the seat was a dud! Somehow there was enough leg space there but no window!! Can you believe a window seat without a window? :O) I had to sit in one near to the window and that one was closed too because of the sun beaming directly on it. Couldn’t see much of Atlantic. I took a periodic stroll and drank loads of water. Someone back home suggested me to drink loads of fluid on board. Caught up with the Air hostesses ( they were aunties :P Air India recruits aunties only I guess, might be a part of their recruitment policy!! ;-)) But those aunties were really sweet. They gave me a cup of coke every time I asked for it without getting vexed… and they also called up the captain to enquire about the area we were cruising over. The captain reported “Greenland”. I thought “Wow!!”. There were patches of water and land mostly. Greenland is really green.


I walked past all the passengers so many times in tandem. I don’t know if my strolling was disturbing people, but it was not possible for me to sit idly like that continuously. It’s a different experience altogether. I have made many train journeys before, all more than 30 hours, but this journey was totally different. I never had brushed my teeth in an aircraft! And since the journey was so long and through day time mostly, I had to brush my teeth almost 3-4 times. I brushed every time I felt it was morning. Lol!


We had a roller coaster ride when we were getting down at Chicago. Before the landing I could see Lake Michigan and the Chicago Skyline, it was a strange feeling as I had seen that so many times in movies and on the TV. The fact that I was seeing that in front of me was a different feeling altogether. The pilot prepared for landing and hurled towards the runway and then suddenly when the plane was about to touch down something went wrong. It was a free fall, and we were scared. The plane again took off and swerved in the air as if the captain had mistaken the proper runway! There was an apologetic announcement saying the runway was not clear. I was very scared. Pankhuri was sitting besides me and she was scared too! I tried amusing her and myself in the process by discussing about a crash landing and more! That way we were relieved off the tension. The plane circled in the air one more time. It was a big circle that it made; it flew into Michigan Lake once again and we could see the skyline encore. Finally the pilot confirmed about landing and we touched down. “Welcome to USA” I said to myself!


The immigration and customs looked more of a mere formality than the over hyped posts on Edulix and soon we were out. I spent my first 10 $ in buying a calling card. And then it pinched when I couldn’t find water anywhere and had to buy it paying 2.3$; the calculator in my mind converted it to INR 120. Gosh!! A small bottle of water for 120!! The flight to Tucson was after 8 hours from that time and god only knows how we spent those excruciating eight hours waiting at the domestic terminal, half asleep, half hungry. The four hour flight to Tucson was a breezer as we slept completely in that and that refreshed up a bit. So you see - our morning was at Frankfurt - 8 hours to Chicago, 8 hours waiting at Chicago and 4 hours flight to Tucson, totaling up to 20 hours of daylight for us!! We just kept praying for the day to end!. Yaar yeh to khatam hi nahi hota!!.. (Dude, the day doesn't seem to end!) -- that's what we thought all the time!! But I would say one last thing -- Air India rocks!! the food and the hospitality, I liked everything. I don't know why people avoid Air India!!

I’m not been able to shut that calculator down, even for a moment although people around here tells me not to convert anything. Well I guess, I need to get used to spending quite a lot out here. And now that I have luckily managed a research assistantship ( Which pays almost double the Oracle salary back home), I guess it will start biting less once I get to see the money being credited in to my account!!

IPL context

This is primarily a response to Aravindan's post on his blog. Read On!

Seems like Aravindan has great analytical power and used that to the effect of addressing IPL!

Here are my thoughts :
1) Yes, I agree team should have local flavour. If I consider the KKR song it does with the bengali flavour - Korbo, Lorbo, Jitbo re - though you'd agree that KKR is slowly moving away from Bengal. Firstly, the sacking of DADA, followed by dropping "Kolkata" from the brand, and now the speculation of moving the base from Kolkata to Ahmedabad. I'd not be surprised to see Dada not playing next season and the "Korbo Lorbo Jitbo" taken out from the theme song. The last time I saw an ad where Dhoni was emulating Rajanikanth - Pepsi ad I guess, well but that's not official and truly doesn't add Tamil flavour to the CSK team!

2) Mandira Bedi - aka "Sandy Baddy babe" according to the fake IPL player still doesnt know a lot about cricket, has done away with her hair and noodle straps this time and thinks that she's acting smart with the commentary part and talking with players but can't still do away with filler sounds like "aaa..." et al! I think Mandira was included cleverly as a strategy to popularize cricket among women, and that strategy might have worked quite well. What I would have liked to see was Mandira doing some work on her cricket knowledge and emotions! ( is till cant forget her sorry, about-to-cry face during the World Cup! Arunlal is the funniest Hindi commentator around! You don't know how much bullshit he used to speak when he commented in Hindi on the National network, more than bullshit his comments were so idiotic and stuff - think of this particular situation : "Laxman took a single and gave the strike to Tendulkar in some test match and Sachin hit a four the next ball : Arunlal's analysis : It was because of Laxman that Sachin could hit a Four! as if Sachin was dependent on Laxman!

3) In not allowing the Pakistani players from playing the IPL two things might have worked and those were not related to the professional standards or relations :
a) The Govt. doesn't like to have cricketing relations with Pakistan for the moment after the Mumbai attacks. IPL primarily being an Indian brainchild should also align with the thoughts of the Govt.
b) Similar to Indian govt thoughts, Pakistan Govt would not have liked the fact that their players get involved with an Indian context, especially after India refused to tour Pakistan ealier.

4) Can't agree more on the unnoticed fact of exchange of Zaheer Khan with Uthappa. In fact I was also wondering about the same - you just made it clear!

The Fake IPL Player!

Finally I came across something which I can call an addiction. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I'm not hooked to other sources of addiction . Although majorly addicted to net surfing, chatting and blogging, I'd rate my newest passion a never-before! I mean, I have never checked my mailbox so many times even when I'd have been expecting a very important mail, compared to the way I'm hooked to the blog of Fake IPL Player!

I've become his fan, and love his posts so far barring a few. This guy claims to be a part of the Kolkata Knight Riders team! He's giving us inroads to the team meetings, and what's happening out there with Dada, SRK, Buchanan and McCullum. His predictions sometimes are pretty true! For example in the first match of KKR, vs Deccan charges he flushed out the team strategy that Skipper (McC) & Calypso King (his christening of Gayle) would open the innings and Lord Almighty (Ganguly) would come 1st down to mortify the middle order. And that,'s exactly what has happened! Lots of speculations going on about who this mysterious blogger is. Whoever he is, he has great writing capabilities. He mixes humor and satire to such a level, that will make you Laugh out Loud (LOL). I'd gone mad yesterday reading his posts. And as I said it is an addiction, I couldn't stop reading all the posts in chronological order and I was eagerly waiting for more!

Way to go buddy! You have the 'balls' to publish such things! I just hope you don't get caught. I don't want to lose something I'm hooked to! I don't wanna lose this addiction!
Love your style, your attitude and everything about you in your posts!! Keep them coming thick or thin whichever way you choose, but never stop them. We want you atleast till the end of the tournament. If you are caught, obviously we'd like to know actually who you are. For the moment I don't care whoever you are, I just need your posts for my daily dose of fun! Keep them flowing from your so called 'poisonous' pen!!

Korbo Lorbo Jitbo Re!

Yes, I've been waiting for this day since November 10th, 2008. That was the last day I watched cricket with zeal and passion. In the days following, I fought very hard to maintain the same level of passion, but just couldn't. It doesn't happen easily! When the icon you are passionate about leaves the arena, try your level best and still you can't! It was a cricketing "recession" of sorts for me!

I am eagerly waiting to watch DADA back in action today and the days to follow, can't wait for the action to start along. Though DADA is not the captain, I can still see him on the cricket field at least, and that is what I gain out of this. May be this is the last time we are watching him on the field!

Wish the Kolkata Knight Riders Team & Sourav All the best!
Irrespective of the result, IPL season really ushers a period of excitement in every Indian household. And it really doesn't matter much if its not happening in India. The action and the environment inside the stadium is no doubt incomparable with anything on earth. We can get at least an iota of it on the TV! I'll be looking forward to it!

Cheers!