Return of Air India- back to the Tatas

Once upon a time Air India was one of the best airlines in the world.  It was established by JRD Tata and as long he was around maintained it.

The Government of India acquired it and then...

As long as I remember, Government officials could travel only by Air India/Indian Airlines.  Before the two wings merged, Air India was for International trips and Indian Airlines was for travel within the country.  Of course, being the government managed meant that neither of the two airlines were, well, quite reliable.  Appa was once stuck in Amsterdam because the Air India flight was diverted for Rajiv Gandhi who was at that time Prime Minister of India.  Government officials went out of their way to avoid traveling by Air India.  They would organize their trips/conferences in such a way that Air India was not available on that day.  It meant seeking approval but I do like to think there was a lot of nudge-nudge, wink-wink involved on the part of officials in charge of giving approvals.

Indian Airlines was the de facto airline to travel within the country.  Before the liberalization, there was no choice.  After liberalization, well, government officials had to travel by Indian Airlines.  

It applied to us also for we are employees of Government of India.  I remember we had a meeting in Kolkata.  There was only one flight to Kolkata from Delhi.  So all of us who were attending the meeting from Delhi booked that flight.  I need to point out that we could book tickets only from government approved travel agents or from Air India directly.  If we used Make my Trip or any such website, then we would not be reimbursed.  Government rules are really lovely.

So we all gathered at Delhi Airport for the flight.  Only to realize that it was late.  It was late.  And late.  The airlines did not think it deem to inform us why it was late.  Finally we boarded the flight at 8 pm in the night and landed in Kolkata at 10 pm.  Fortunately, I had so many colleagues with me so traveling to the hotel late at night in a city I had never been to.

Four years back, before the pandemic, I attended a meeting in Mumbai.  Coming back to Delhi, I was stuck in the Mumbai Airport for 6 hours because the flight was late.  One again the airlines did not think it appropriate to tell us what the problem was.  As a sop, they arranged for a meal.  That was it.

As the years went by and debts mounted, Air India simply stopped upgrading its flights. The interiors were in a mess, seats were torn, and the service personnel stopped caring (not that they cared before but it just went up to another level of not caring).  The only good thing about the flight was that there was more leg room even in economy section and they provided good meal in all their flights.

The Airlines has now been sold back to Tatas.

Once the sale became finalized, we had few anxious moments.  How will the government officials travel?  Will we be free to choose what we wanted?

We got the notification few days back.  Yes, we are free to choose but the tickets must be L1 (lowest cost).  It must be purchased only through Government approved travel agent.  But as a friend of mine who travels to meetings from Bubneshwar put it: At least now she is sure of reaching to her destination at a reasonable hour without delays. 

 

Rebel Sultans by Manu S Pillai

There is only one silver lining in the otherwise dismal Chennai Airport- Higginbothams book store.

Whenever I am in Chennai Airport (after dodging the falling ceiling and window panes) I make a beeline to the book store.  It is a tiny store and does not have a very wide collection.  Occasionally I am lucky.  This is where I picked up Tales of Old and New Madras by S. Muthiah and The Courtesan, The Mahatama and the Italian Brahmin by Manu S. Pillai.  I enjoyed both the books tremendously.  One for the rich history of Madras and the other for the quirky tales from the past.

This time when I saw that Higginbothams had Rebel Sultans by Manu S. Pillai I just had to purchase it.

The book paints a very vivid picture of the  Deccan Sultans- the time between Malik Kafur and Malik Ambar.  This was when Bijapur, Golconda, Vijayanagara flourished.  Hyderabad was built. The fanciful might think Vijayanagara was a Hindu kingdom surrounded by Muslim regimes but the truth, as Manu Pillai, points out was far from it.  It was all about politics.  Religion just happened to be there.  So there were Muslim soldiers in the Vijayanagara army and there were Hindus in the administration of the Sultans.  Everything was mixed up and the only thing that mattered was the kingdom. 

Many of the sultans were "characters".  Ibrahim Adil Shah thought of himself as Saraswati's son and tried to rename Bijapur as Vidyapur (distinctly Sanskrit name "City of Learning).  I chuckled my way through the book reading about the idiosyncrasies of many of the Sultans.

At a time when powers to be are trying to polarize India along the lines of religious identities, the book was a balm.  To read about a time when all religions flourished without the menace of long arching hatred. It is not to say that it was wonderful time but it is to say that the present times leave a bitter taste.

Chocolate brownie- forays into gluten free baking

This year it finally hit me that I am gluten intolerant.  Maybe it was the stress of the past few years that led to this.  Maybe it is age-related.  Who knows?  All I know is that if I take any gluten containing food I am plagued by headache, nausea and other symptoms. 

It is a bummer for I had to give up everything I love- cakes, pastries, pies, pasta, bread, roti, sooji (semolina) upma...the list is simply endless. Everything had to be re-jiged.  Of course, being South Indian, our main staple is rice.  So it was not too much of a problem.  But I also now include lots millets, ragi, jowar (sorgum), and bajra in my diet.  Wheat rotis have been replaced by ragi/bajra/sorghum roti.

For the past several months I simply gave up on baking.  Slowly I am picking it up now by experimenting with gluten free flours.

Yesterday I was simply craving for brownies.  I used this recipe, doubling everything so that I can bake in a 8 x 8 inch pan.  I ground up oats and almonds in my blender for oats flour and almond powder that the recipe called for.  Instead of 4 eggs, I used 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of yogurt.  I added only about 1/4 cup of melted chocolate.  I like walnuts in my brownies so I  added walnuts and broken up bits of Cadbury's chocolate for chocolate chips.

The trick is to refrigerate the brownies after they have cooled down before cutting them into pieces.

So here it is:

 

This batch of brownies is for my students.

The bureaucracy never fails to amuse me and amaze me

So I misplaced my ATM card.  I searched for it everywhere.  Drawers, bags, and then in desperation between pages of books and finally, the fridge.  No doubt it will resurface some day but for the time being it is misplaced or lost.  To be on safe side, I blocked the card and then today made my way to the State Bank of India in the 40oC heat to get a new ATM card.  

Thus, began the saga.

There are multiple forms for applying for anything.  I picked one of the forms and filled it up.  The person at the counter told that it was a wrong form. I have to fill a form that has blocks.  I went back and searched for the form with blocks.  I filled it up.  Then as appa has been badgering me for a long time, I also filled up the form for the internet banking.  (I have the perfect excuse- I never remember the userid and password but appa refuses to accept it as valid argument).

I took it back to the counter.  The person took the forms.  He gave back the internet banking form.  Another person deals with it.  Not him.  He will do the ATM form.  Then he looked up my relevant details in the computer.  He looked up puzzled. 

"Your address is showing as C.P. Ramaswamy Road, Chennai."

"But my account is here."

"Madam, you have to get your internet banking approved.  Then change your address using the internet banking.  Then only your ATM card can be processed."

So I took the internet banking form to the relevant person.

He asked for my mobile number.  I gave it to him.

"Ah," he said, "You mobile number is not registered with the bank.  You have to fill up Know Your Customer form, register your mobile number with us, and then only the Internet banking can be activated."

"Where is the Know Your Customer form?"

It turns out that there are two forms that I have to fill.  Form A and Form B.  I also need a photo (it is there in one of the drawers at home) and a copy of my PAN card and my Aadhaar card.  

It was at this point I gave up.  I got the forms and now I have to fill them up.  I have to get a copy of the PAN and Aadhaar card (why do we need two cards for identification?), give everything to the bank, get the mobile number registered, get internet account, change my address, and then get a new ATM .

Whew!

As I was mulling on the process, it finally dawned on me as to why my address is shown as C.P. Ramaswamy Road, Chennai.

When the parents purchased a flat in Chennai to settle down after retirement, I lived with them for couple of years.  At that point, amma and I opened a joint account in the State Bank of Mysore, C. P. Ramaswamy Road Branch.  Everything was perfect as long State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of India were two separate entities.  Few years back, the two banks were merged into one.  As the State Bank of Mysore was the older account, on merging, it became the parent account, and C.P. Ramaswamy Road became the default address.  Of course, neither of the banks thought of asking me or informing me.  So there it is.  A perfect mess. 

Obituaries

The ongoing pandemic has taught me how fragile and unpredictable life is.

It was not supposed to end like this.  We met on the first day of college.  She had come with her mother for admission, I was on my own feeling very adultish.  When classes started, we sat next to each other on the third row of the lecture hall.  During lunch hour, we swapped lunch boxes.  She ate the South Indian dishes that amma prepared and I ate the North Indian dishes that her mother prepared.  We talked for hours on phone much to the amusement of my family.  After undergraduation, we  got admission to the same course and lived in the same hostel for two years.  In the final year, we shared a room that very soon, because of her vivacious personality, became the center for all gatherings.  During Summer Break when hostels did not provide food, we cooked in our room and all of us ate together.   We read novels, quarreled, made up, swapped notes, read each other's project reports.  She taught me to be good at giving seminars and inspired me to be a good teacher.  She also taught me never to bow down to injustice.  

When her father passed away, she would talk to Amma and Appa.  Even in the end, when she was admitted to hospital, all she wanted was Appa's blessings because in him she saw her own father.

For the past one week as Covid ravaged her body and as she fought back, I kept hoping for a miracle.  But as her daughters said, it was probably for the best because the quality of her life even after recovery would have been very poor.  I know but it is still hard to take.

Just a couple of days back I got know that another friend who was my neighbour for a brief while had also succumbed to the infection.   When I joined JNU, I was given accommodation in Old Transit House.  It was supposed to be for a brief period as the name suggests but it ended up as a long haul due to housing shortage.  Each apartment consisted of two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.  The doors opened to a common corridor.  We would meet in the corridors- either coming for office or going to office.  We would stop and chat and laugh.  Being older than me, she would often give me advice on knottier problems of life. When she celebrated her husband's 50th birthday, 10 of us piled into her tiny apartment for the party.  They soon moved to a bigger place but we would keep meeting.  The last time I met her was when a mutual friend of ours, a professor of German Studies, had come down from Bombay (or Mumbai).   I went over to her place and then we all went to the mall to have Cinnabon.  When her husband retired she moved out of the campus.

Rest in peace, dear friends.

 

 

Variant of concern

 As my best friend lies in ICU battling ravages caused by Covid, and as we battle bed shortages, test shortages, vaccine shortages, among host of other shortages, I see that the Union Health Ministry has issued a statement that WHO has not associated the term "Indian Variant" with B.1.617 which has now been declared variant of concern.  Of course, this is important.  More important than addressing the concerns raised by doctors over the use of remdesivir and plasma therapy for Covid treatment.  The doctors have rightly pointed out that neither of these therapies are approved and ICMR should issue a statement/guideline regarding these therapies.  But I guess, the Union Health Minister has more pressing issues.

The second Covid wave

As I received information via my Whatsapp group about the death of a classmate due to Covid, and my best friend told me today that she was hospitalized due to falling oxygen levels, I realized that this wave was hitting close to home.  Of course we knew, last year too, that the person dying was someone's sister, mother, beloved but it was not personal.  This year it has become personal.  Every other person dying is someone you know.  Every other person getting infected is some one you know.  At this point, three of my students have the infection and I worry about them every day.  

And to think this was all avoidable.  Complacency never pays off.  As the number of cases decreased, schools/colleges/universities partially reopened, life returned back to normal.  Lavish weddings became the norm.  Festivals were celebrated.  On the campus, we had to keep reminding students to wear masks but all our admonishments fell on deaf ears.

This year, sometime late February/early March, I made my way to one of the main markets to get my curtains repaired. I was appalled.  A loudspeaker was blaring message about social distancing, people were milling about, jostling each other, masks were either not being worn or were dangling around the chin, shopkeepers were helpless and it was a mayhem.  It was almost as if people had forgotten about the pandemic.

Then came the state elections and rallies were held with no social distancing, no masks, no precautions.  None of the political leaders walked the talk about social distancing and masking.  Finally,  the Kumbh Mela was held in Haridwar.  It was only when a Mahant died that the politicians thought it prudent to shut it down.

Even if the government (Central as well as State) had strengthened the hospitals, oxygen supply, testing...things could have been done in the past one year.  It is the callousness of it all that hurts and angers.