May 6th 2004 – one day I can never forget in my life. Last exam of 1st year of MBA and I was leaving home for a short trip of 4 days. Had to submit hell a lot of reports – marketing, erp, wcm and scm. Thanks to my teammates much of the load was taken by then. I did not have much to do but really felt bad for not contributing as much as I cud have. Also wanted to attend vipin,sudeep and kini’s presentation on retail. The slides looked really fundoo. At 3.15 I was still at the lab.My train was at 6pm. PJ, Nadeem and mama had to literally push me out of the lab to get ready to leave. Finally got ready by 4 and PJ dropped me to the auto stand. All thru was having a strange feeling of messing up somewhere. As I got into the auto, I looked at my ticket. To my horror it read “Chennai express “ Dep – 16.00 hrs. For the past 3 days I had been reading it as 6 o’clock. Well, it just confirmed my belief in Murphy’s law “ If anything has to go wrong, it will “.
I thot that I wud board charminar if I don’t get late canceling the ticket.
Landed up in Central with about Rs.500 in my purse. I always thot it wud be enuf in case of any emergency. Wud get another three or four hundred on canceling my ticket.
The ordeal starts here. First I am asked to go to the reservation complex where I stand for about 20 mins after which appa rings up and asks me to go to current cancellation counter. Had no clue where that was. Asked a police for instructions. As expected he gave me the wrong directions and I stood in another q only to hear the guy ask me to go to another q. after 2 more q’s I finally manage to get my ticket cancelled. The clock show 6.15. Now I have about 800 still not enuf money for 2A ticket so no regrets that charminar had left. What cud be worse than standing in chennai central with my phone showing min battery indication with an ICICI card. I have money on the card but no atm around to draw the money. That day I realized one of the toughest things to do in chennai was to find an ICICI atm.
In the meantime, Sridhar Bhaiyya rings up and tells me that the IA flight is delayed by ½ an hour and is going to depart at 8.30. Still 45mins left to check in. I decide to go to college pick up some money from the atm and leave for airport. After going in the traffic for a while I realize there’s no way I wud make it to airport on time. So decide to take a chance and go to airport directly with a hope of finding an atm on the way.
On the way I spot spencer’s and remember abt the atm in foodworld. I ask the auto to wait and go into foodworld. A beautiful signboard reads “ATM not working”. I cudn’t have been happier. My entire day was getting screwed up. All not over – I come out and don’t find the auto. Luckily I have my luggage with me. But still try to search for the auto driver( MBA still hasn’t made me heartless). Locate him and start moving towards the airport. Find an ATM on the ways and get the ticket just in time. Although its 7.35 the lady gives an open ticket.
9.45 and heaven. I am in hyderabad. All the pain I took paid dividends.
Today it’s the 10th of may and I have done nothing worthwhile in 3 days. Quite frankly too short a time to meet all my friends. Nagesh was kind enuf to spend time with me after a long days work. Feel really bad for some of my friends who work late night and go back early in the mornings without any weekends off. Recently heard ratna telling me that she went back at 12.30 in the night and was back in the office at 7am on a Sunday morning. Looks like I am having a 2 yr extended vacation. Not that my life is any easy. But hopefully it will be a lot less hectic this summer.
Got to spend time with appa, amma, arati, bhaiyya and my sweet lil niece aishu. She has picked up a lot of English since the last time I came down. Only it wud be better if she cud say “ra”. Thanks to her, I come by “tlain”, eat “blead” for “bleakfast” and sing “hal gadi badal lahi hai loop zindagi”. Well a part of that song does seem true. I keep getting into vicious “loops” every now and then.
moral of my trip: ask somebody to look at ur ticket and tell u the time . always ask friends in IT companies for appointments atleast a month before and be ready to miss out on meeting them.
My link for the day eye4u