Saturday, July 30, 2005

Nitwits and Nitpickers

The Pakistani defense forum informs us that there is an Indian connection to the London bombings. According to them,
“An India connection with the London bombings has emerged after police named two of the potential suicide bombers who tried to blow themselves up on the London transport network last Thursday.
The devices the bombers assembled were in plastic food storage containers made in India, each six-and-a-quarter liters in size with a white lid, which were then put in dark-colored rucksacks.” (Full article)
Though the story is attributed to an Indian newspaper the Paki’s have gratefully taken it as an endorsement of an Indian hand in the blasts.

I was thinking that these guys were crazy, but now I am pretty sure they are Crazy Stupid. What kind of an idiot comes out with this theory? So, the shirts the bombers wore might have come from South Africa, the shoes from Taiwan, and there is a good probability that they drank a can of Pepsi before embarking on their boom boom trip, so there is an American connection too.
Our neighbors are beginning to clutch at straws in their attempt to wiggle away from what is clearly a case of the ISI’s madcap adventures during the past few decades coming back to haunt them. But, an Indian connection because ‘the bombs were assembled in food containers made in India’ is definitely one for the 1001 joke book.
The PDF unlike its name is not a defense forum, it’s more of an India bashing forum. But the praiseworthy point is, they let Indians post their opinions on it unlike the privately run Indian defense forum Bharat-Rakshak run by some self appointed dimwitted guards of Indian pride. India bashing posts on this forum is quite often deleted by the moderators. A forum is all about pitting your opinions against your opponents. Deleting their opinions doesn’t help in any way other than letting the world know that you are an intolerant asshole.
And bashing a failed state doesn’t help either them or us, nor does it help you get laid or gets you a free lunch. Pick someone of a similar size instead of trying to show you have a bigger dick than those wimps.
Only when we get out of the mindset of comparing ourselves with Pakistan in every sphere of life, can we truly aspire for a place in the global leadership. Till then we will keep trashing each other till we are both eventually dumped into the trashcan of history.

Contributions to:
Fund for a XXXXXXXXXXXXL Trash Can to dump ourselves
UN Rubbish Clearing Council
Geneva.

Friday, July 29, 2005

The Last Frontier

I was thinking along the superlative lines for describing this place. But then I ran through the whole list before giving up.
Traveling from New York City to Anchorage, it was a drab landscape all the way into Canadian territory. Six hundred nautical miles before Anchorage is when it all changed dramatically. Frozen wastes (this is the first and last time I will use that term), long stretches of ice punctuated with the rise of a dark mountain peak (When you travel here, make sure you ask for a window seat). The sun reflecting off the snow and ice as far as the ‘I’ can see.
Ted Stevens Airport – Anchorage; looks like a usual American airport, feels like one, so it must be one. The moment you step out is when you realize why the Alaskans disdainfully call the rest of the United States as the lower forty-eight (Hawaii and Alaska are non contiguous while the rest of the states…go look at a map). After a North West Airlines employee gleefully informs me that they have lost my bags, I step out of the terminal and…well…I stepped into. …(I have no choice except to use the much used cliché) “If there is a heaven on earth, this is it”.
I have two days to drift around Anchorage (By the way this is not the capital of Alaska. The capital is a city called Juneau, and it has roughly around a tenth of the population of Anchorage and in other news, North West found my bags and delivered them to my hotel). A day later, after seeing the sights and having this crazy idea of staying back as an illegal immigrant, I just about manage to convince myself to act like a responsible adult and go back to work and family. But then, that was before I traveled to Seward.
Seward, Pop- 3500. Located in south central Alaska. It has absolutely nothing except a small port called Resurrection bay. This bay has a few hundred boats that take the tourists to the glaciers and other assorted places where whales come to mate and the sea lions come on a date. It is surrounded by mountains and glaciers and it also happens to have a profound influence on any human who wants to take the time to just look in any direction, get themselves speechless and Kow Tow to Mother Nature, all this under a fraction of a second.
I have been to some amazing places and ‘mind blowing’ comes to the mind when I think about a few of those places, but Alaska, I need to invent words to describe it. (Mail me if you need any assistance to travel any place, I would probably know someone who has been there and who would be glad to assist you, that’s how the travelers network works and you are welcome to join it).
From Anchorage, take a train to Seward would be my advice. It takes four hours as opposed to two hours by road, but then “Time” is a relative concept in the Artic Circle. After traveling thorough snow capped mountains, glaciers so close you could touch them and forests of spruce and rivers of glacial waters, I arrive at my destination. Being on a budget (stop laughing, I was on a budget), I had already booked my rooms over the Internet in a place called the Salmon Bake Cabin.
I get off the train at Sewards only platform (which it shares with a regular road) and have the usual first few minutes of ‘lost look’ on my face. A shuttle bus driver who looks like David Boon (the Oz batsman) comes up to me and introduces himself as Mike and asks where I am headed. Mike learns about my destination and strikes a deal. I help him load his passenger’s bags in the bus and I get a drop to my hotel/cabin/whatever, in return. Ten minutes later I am loading bags in a bus and thirty minutes later I reach the Salmon Bake Cabin.
A bunch of dogs come to greet me in a place that is most certainly not ‘up market’. The sign says “Cheap beer and lousy food”. In all optimism I get off the bus and Mike tells me that Salmon Bake serves the best food in Seward. I am not sure if he was being sarcastic but what the hell, not like I have a choice anyways, my credit card is already a couple of hundred dollars weaker and that happened when I decided to book a cabin here over the big 3W’s.
Daisy and Shadow (I learnt their names much later) the adorable Labradors lead the way and knock on a couple of doors before eventually getting the right one.
A lady comes out and asks if she can be of help. Busy playing with the dogs I remember my manners a bit late and turn around with an apologetic smile and say, “I have a reservation.” Light dawns, I am handed a key and escorted to the most amazing log cabin I've ever set my scopes on. Seeing that I didn’t have a mode of transportation (Americans don’t consider legs as mode of ‘transportation’) she offers the use of her granddaughter’s bike. Now I have a cabin and a bicycle to ride, am I set or what?
It’s a four-mile pedal to ‘downtown’ (I use the word loosely) Seward. And I ride into its cloudy overcast glory. That’s when I fell in love. Boats and yachts moored in the tiny harbor, a few little pubs to garnish the boardwalk and….lets just say, interesting landscape (it will stay that way till I post the pictures). I sit there speechless for a few hours and think to myself, I could have ‘not’ traveled to this place for a thousand reasons, but I came here for just one, because I wanted to.
Next day is cruise time. I am offered a wide variety of cruises down Resurrection bay, Prince William Sound and the Kenai fjords. Most are impersonal 150 seat cruise boats. While trying to strike a deal I run across a place that says, 25 seater personalized cruise. The ding thing goes ding in my head (along with the bulb glowing) and I book myself on it. Yet another good decision (lady luck has been spending a lot of time with me lately, maybe I'll marry her if she’ll have me!)

Coming up

Salmon Bake cuisine (people like cheap beer and lousy food?)
Hair cut in Anchorage.
Gay bar Anecdotes.
Cruising the Kenai Fjords aboard the Northern Wind.
The Perfect Storm (If I can figure out how to upload videos)
If you want to go someplace. GO. (Much more metaphysical musings)

(All of the above will be posted whenever I decide to move my ass and write which could be anywhere between a few days and a few decades.)
Warning: Photos coming up shortly! If you don’t want to spend all your waking hours (and most of your sleeping ones) thinking about going to Alaska, I suggest you never visit this page).

Contributions to:
AM’s fund to move to Alaska
You'll find me holding out my hat on a different street corner each day.

Note of Thanks:
Diffdrummer for helping a stranger navigate unfamiliar territories.
Chinnu for telling me that diff drummer exists and being the first and only fan of my writing (I hope she still is).
The company I work for. They sent me on a route I wanted to go, instead of moving me from point A to B.
My girlfriend, for being the most encouraging character on the planet. Thank you woman. Next time around I hope you are with me.
My sis, for just being my sis and having the urge to travel as much as I do, I hope you get to do it all.

Friday, July 08, 2005

Lost in New York

Harlem railway station, 1:23 A.M. Six of us standing around a railway timetable trying to figure out how to get from (what else???) point A to point B. It being early morning July 5th didn’t help. The Americans had decided to take a long weekend and make babies and maybe send them to school before wrapping up the weekend. The metro rail staff had gone to see the fireworks (pretty interesting show) or to have wild sex with their boy/girl/_____(fill in the blanks) friends. From 12.40 to 1.10 A.M, I Missed two trains cause there was no one to tell if it goes where I needed to go (Didn’t want to get on the train and find myself in downtown Iraq, heard its not a great place to spend a Saturday, Sunday or any other night for that matter). Eventually the six of us put our heads together and managed to figure out the timetable, and duh!!!! , The next train has a conductor who answers all our questions quite patiently. Ah, irony is a wicked fellow.

Life is actually quite funny. Me, a relatively small town guy, (stuck?) in what is probably the biggest city on earth, finds that people who live in the big apple are as lost as I am with their own public transportation. Can’t really blame them, this is a nation that thinks cars are an extension of their anatomy. Ask an American to name body parts; you would get a transmission box and drive shaft somewhere between the femur and the colon. Footpaths (Sidewalks to the folks here) are missing in most parts of the country. A guy like me who likes to walk and explore a place is at a decided disadvantage. Driving here is monotonous, everyone sticks to the rules and for the original wild Indian driver (me, you dimwits) it is a positively boring affair (I almost fell asleep on the wheel during peak commute hour!).

Moving a little beyond the subject, anyone who reads, or is even literate (if you are reading this I wouldn’t put you under either category, so this is not for you), should read "A short history of nearly everything" by this guy (call me a sexist, but tell me if there is one really mind blowing book written by a woman? And before I get some stupid mails, Sidney Sheldon is a guy and he doesn’t write mind blowing books) called Bill Bryson. The book lives up to its name. Gives a short synopsis of nearly everything in the planet and beyond. More interesting than driving in the USA!

Contributions:
Drive car, use fuel, Sheikh happy.
A/c His Royal Highness King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
C/o OPEC
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