Travel titbits

My job takes me to all kinds of interesting places on earth. Recently, I traveled to 4 “happening” places in Canada in 4 days – Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Together, they belong to the cluster of cities where the slogan should be, “Welcome to ---- (insert the name of the city here), where fun comes to die.” I guess my trip would be equivalent to my lovely sister-in-law-cum-a-world-traveler-wannabe, Kanya Bahwa (a typical Delhite) visiting 4 super cool places – Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Allahabad (UP), Jabalpur (MP), and Guntur (AP) in India, which, by the way, will be a feat itself if she can logistically manage to get to all 4 of them in 4 days.

They say that you learn a great deal just by traveling. I, on the other hand, do not normally learn a thing…. I just observe. For example, in Saskatoon, since we had back-to-back meetings with clients throughout the day, the only lunch we could grab was a quick Subway sandwich. When I entered the store, I saw a sign publicizing their party catering services. At the bottom of the promotion, it said, “For details, please see one of your Subway Sandwich Artists®.”  Really? Sandwich Artist®? There was a time in the history of humanity when people, such as Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci etc. were known as artists. Never in their wildest dreams could these artists have imagined that someday down the road, a high school dropout from a sandwich joint will also be known as an “artist”. What is next? The guy collecting toll at NJ Turnpike will now be known as a “toll artist”? I have already started calling the janitor in our building a “cleanliness artist”. She does smile every time I say that to her.

Since I have “paid my dues” with a significant amount of travel in the last 9 years, the airlines now at least treat me with upgrades and nicer seats. However, it was not this way when I started traveling in 2004 with my consulting job.  Since I did not have any “status” with United Airlines, I used to fly coach every week.  I remember once when I was checking-in on an EasyCheckIn® kiosk for a Chicago-LA flight, a message popped up on the screen asking me if I wanted to upgrade to the Economy Plus for $30 which would give me 5 extra inches of legroom.  I was in a hurry to get the boarding pass and get through security so I did not buy that option.  While waiting to board, I thought some more about the option and realized that I could definitely use a couple of extra inches of legroom because it was a long flight. So, I went to the counter at the gate and had the following conversation with the friendly lady behind the counter (who was not that friendly by the time I was done with the conversation):

Lady: How may I help you, Sir?

Me: I have already checked in at the kiosk but now I would like to upgrade.

Lady:  We have no upgrades to the first class available at this time because this flight is full.

Me:  No, I am not asking for the upgrade to the first class. I just need 3 extra inches of legroom. Here is the fee (I handed over exact change for $18).

Lady: Excuse me? What is this?

Me: I saw this message on the kiosk that I could buy 5” of extra legroom for $30 in Economy Plus but I need only 3” so I am paying $18.

Now not-so-friendly Lady: Can I see your boarding pass?

I handed her my boarding pass and she printed another one for me.

Me: Ma’m, my seat was 22C, now it says 37S. Economy Plus is in the front of the plane, not in the back. And, by the way, how many rows does this plane have?

Lady: 36

Me: What? Then what is 37S? And I have never seen an “S” in any seat number. Even on wide-body, dual-aisle planes, I have seen may be a “K” but never an “S”.

Lady: After row 36, outside the bathroom, we will give you a Stool (and hence the letter “S”) to sit on so you will get your extra 3 inches of leg room. In fact, you will get many more inches of space around you but I won’t charge you for that.

Needless to say, I pleaded her to put me back into my original seat 22C.

On another note, thank God that the US government is open for business once again after a 2 week shut down otherwise more and more government services would have got impacted. After shutting down all non-essential services, if the government still had not received any money from the US Congress (which, by the way, now has an approval rating of 5%.....if you can still call it an “approval” rating), it would have been forced to shut down some of the critical services. And I heard that the air traffic control was next on the list. Whenever that happens, all air traffic will then be controlled manually by all pilots…just like the road traffic in India is controlled by all drivers without any interference from any authorities (at least in smaller towns, such as my hometown, where in a town of 383,318 people (per 2011 census), there is only ONE traffic light, which everyone ignores most of the time).

Since my wife, Anshu was a little stressed out about a chance of me traveling to the US amid the potential air traffic control shutdown (when the air traffic would look like the road traffic in India), I had to get some statistics to put her mind at ease. When we started researching the internet, on the surface, it appeared that India had one of the worst fatalities rate in road accidents (100 deaths per year per 100,000 motor vehicles compared to 15 in the US and 13 in Canada). However, I had to remind her that the denominator here was “per 100,000 motor vehicles” and that is why the statistics looked offal. When you convert the same stats with a different denominator, for example, “per 100,000 moving objects (including but not limited to, cars, scooters, buses, trucks, Kiddo Bahwa’s car, cows, kids, rickshaws, bullock carts, 3-wheelers, horse carriages, dogs, auto-rickshaws, pigs, bulldozers, motor cycles, bicycles, tricycles etc. etc.)”, it does not look that bad. So she is quite comfortable now.

After walking through jet bridges hundreds of time in a typical year, I have memorized all slogans on HSBC billboards predicting the future of humanity. I always wonder how a commercial bank knows that, “Your DNA will be your data”, “Even the smallest businesses will be multinational”, “You will quench your thirst with salt water” etc. etc.  So the other day I called them just to see how good they are with their stuff. The conversation went something like this:

HSBC Rep: Thank you for calling the HSBC bank. How may I help you?

Me: Hi, I would like to know the gold price on Chicago Mercantile Exchange on 2^nd of October, 2014.

Rep: Excuse me?

Me: This is HSBC bank, right?

Rep: Yes Sir.

Me: You have these billboards at every airport in the world with slogans, such as, “Exports will not be transported but rather transmitted” and “Your education will be your best investment” etc., right?

Rep: Absolutely. We are proud of those, Sir.

Me: Great. So, it means that you have a freaking crystal ball in your office which tells you exactly how the world is going to shape up in the future. So why can’t you tell me the gold prices in the future? My wife’s crazy sister, Kiddo Bahwa, is a sucker for gold jewelry and buys gold on “special” occasions, such as 2^nd of October, 12^th of September etc. It will really help her if she can plan these purchases.

And suddenly I heard a dial tone. The phone had been disconnected. Go figure!

And as always, my final thought (this time a travel quote courtesy Henry Youngman, a great Philosopher): “Just got back from a pleasure trip: I dropped my mother-in-law at the airport”.