Idle Thoughts …

The world is going crazy and paranoid over this certain new strand of the flu
virus. But really, you should be happy to get one.Why?

(a) Once you have it, you realize, really, really, this is JUST ANOTHER type of FLU dammit! Granted, you feel lousy for a day or two but then in a week, you are back to your old charming self. For most people.
(b) Finally you get to stay away from work and devote more time to that book you've been meaning to read or the movie you've been meaning to watch or that project you've been putting off.
(c) You're no longer in the dilemma whether or not to take the shot. You've already gone through the worst
(d) You realize that so many people are making so much money just taking advantage of your fears
(e) You've now have more faith on human immune system and how resilient it can
be

Recently, I finally finished reading Lahiri’s latest book. Oh boy, I am still immersed in it’s thoughts, thinking about the fate of some of the characters and the messages the stories tried to convey. This blog will give some of my impressions and thoughts on the book. The readers should be aware that there might be spoilers here and there. So if you haven’t read the book and do not want any inkling about the storyline, you should probably not read this blog.

If you have previously read Lahiri’s earlier book, The Namesake, you would like and love this book as much. Just like Namesake, Lahiri’s writings deal with the complicated emotions of new immigrants and their struggle to cope with the new lifestyle in North America. This new book takes a step ahead and deals with the lives of their kids and how their parents eventually come to terms with the new ‘Americanized’ lifestyle lead by their own children. I think Lahiri has an uncanny ability to express deep emotions and loneliness through mere words in her writing, in each and every of her story-lines. This new book takes a bolder step in this direction. The writing is so intense at times that it moves you, makes you sad, in pain and even makes you cry. Clearly, the author has spent lot of time studying and observing people, the human psyche, their emotional and physical needs, the darker and suppressed needs, their changing lives and the ability to accept even the once unthinkable things. Lahiri delves deep into the experiences and background of each of the characters of her book, describes their psychology and character and creates a vivid picture in the mind of the reader about each of them. You’d have seen this already if you have read The Namesake. This book, aside from being a great contemporary literary work, is also an excellent psychological study. Further, as a fellow Bengali, I am often surprised to see how well and deep her understanding of Bengali culture and lifestyle is. This understanding has enabled her to create characters that are so real life like that I can almost feel them. It’s just amazing!

Lahiri’s writing in this book is also amorous and arousing at times, no different from it’s predecessor. Sex and sexual needs are well explored in her writing, to explain characters at a core level, as tools that explains deeper elements in relationships, as something of a source of pain and loneliness or even happiness, as something that can sometimes unite people who are otherwise unsure, unaware of their own feelings and needs. This book is for adults who have deeper understanding of life – it is the experiences that makes us wiser and this book is all about human experiences. It is not for minors, as it should never be.

The book is a collection of six short stories, the last one having being broken up into three sections. The two stories that really moved me are ‘Hell-Heaven’ and ‘Hema and Koushik’, the later has a remarkable similarity with The Namesake in that just like The Namesake, it explains the lifetime of experiences and struggles of one character primarily, that of Koushik. However, to be really honest, I really enjoyed reading each and every story in this book. Except for ‘Hema and Koushik’ and ‘Choice of Accommodations’, in all the rest of her writings, she has sort of left a numerous number of questions unanswered in the reader’s mind. In The Namesake, we wonder what would have happened to Gogol, would he remain alone? Would he find someone to settle down with? Would he and Maxine eventually ‘fix up’? What would Ashima do? etc. In this book too, we are left with a similar set of questions that remain unanswered – would Sang and Paul ever see each other (Nobody’s Business)? Will they confront each other’s feelings and come to terms with what transpired involving Farukh? Will Ruma’s dad ultimately find happiness in the rest of his remaining days with Mrs Bagchi (Unaccustomed Earth)? Will he oblige her daughter and visit her daughter again and live with her once more? Will Sudha and Roger ever forgive Rahul (Only Goodness)? What would happen to him? Would he ever becomes successful and settled just like his had would have loved to see? Will Deborah overcome her pain (Hell-Heaven)? Will she find the consolations she was looking for from Usha’s mom? Will Pranab understand what he did and come back to her again? ….

Yeah, indeed, too many questions. Too many painful endings. Too much loneliness. Broken families, broken hearts, hope and optimism, strong ties between families, human emotional needs … all these are explored in each and every pages of the book. Does it really matter whether one had an American or Indian upbringing? Does the racial and cultural qualifications really make a shit of difference in the end? We all have common feelings and needs. That there are only certain basic ingredients that make a long term successful relationship. That lack of those basic ingredients can virtually make a marriage empty if not legally terminated, that we all sometimes feel the need to be loved and wanted and we would sometimes make great compromises towards getting them. That we all feel immense pain from the suffering of our loved ones, to see them wither away in front of our eyes, slowly inching towards a certain painful death, not being able to do anything. All these are common, basic characteristics of every human, regardless of physical boundaries of counties and culture. And just like The Namesake, this book thus has an universal appeal.

‘Hema and Koushik’ is the most intense of all the stories in my opinion. In particular, it has that rare definitive ending – the ending that came with the death of Koushik in the hands of the Asian Tsunami. It is finally death that put an end to all those questions that would perhaps have remained unanswered otherwise. Throughout the book, through the shared experiences of Hema and Koushik, the author has brought the two characters closer, even without the knowledge of the characters themselves. Koushik has seen his mom wither away, painfully, slowly but surely in the jaws of death from breast cancer and Hema, to some extent has shared this experience. Those pages where the author explains koushik’s emotional state as he goes through him mom’s terminal illness, her pain, her loss of hair, those days spent in injecting morphine that had to be administered just to suppress those pains yet not unable to avoid the finality of the disease, his dad’s over pampering his mom in every way is virtually impossible to read without taking a break – it’s too painful, it’s too much of a load. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one in a terminal illness would perhaps find it impossible to even finish the novel. So I would not recommend reading it at all. Others who would reach the end the novel like me would see that through these painful experiences that Koushik went through, the complicated and emotionally difficult times when his dad again married another woman of a completely different type – not out of love or luxury but out of a necessity, through his unique work profile and his ability to survive the harsh humanitarian conditions in the parts of the world where he visited, made him an unique individual. Only Hema could come close to understanding Koushik as they had grown up together with shared experiences. Unfortunately, until the time they confront each other in Italy, those days they spent together in bed, they never really understood how much they really needed each other. Unfortunately, by then life had slipped away from both of them. Hema would be going back to India to marry another man she hardly knew and Koushik would find himself a new job in Japan. Yet those days made a lasting impression on both of them and they finally found the love of their lives. The kind of love that one would cherish secretly all of one’s life never revealing yet existing … the kind of love that would make Hema wish that the life that was growing within her were that of Koushik’s and not her husband’s when she heard the news of Koushik’s death. Unfortunately, by then death had taken away all from either of their lives putting a finality to everything, putting an end to all the uncertainty and the questions and erasing Koushik’s existence altogether from all their lives just like it did with his mom … for Koushik had not left behind anything …. for they were careful in using contraceptives.

Yes, I cried when I finished reading the story. It’s very deep, very emotionally appealing, very thought provoking.

Well, I came down to collect my baggage hoping to get done soon. To my frustration, my checked in baggage never arrived! I noticed that YYC too had a section where they kept unclaimed baggages and I looked there desperately in search of my lost baggage. Simultaneously, I could see a long queue in front of the Air Canada baggage counter. “c’mon, not again! gimme a break!”, I told myself. Not able to find my bag, I queued up as well to report the incident. Fortunately for me, I had too much time at hand. I arrived at YYC around 8:30 AM and my next flight was at 1:30 PM. I walked up to the man in the counter and produced the tags that Air Canada had given me while checking in. After a quick look at the computer, I was told, “we don’t know where your baggage is, it’s not here”! I reported my delayed baggage with full description and my temporary address in India and told them to forward it there. I was given a tag wit a baggage tracking number and was told to keep an eye on the baggages that would arrive from YVR with the next flight and report them if I find my baggage. I must also inform Lufthansa of my delayed baggage – thus came the instructions. Hence, I waited for a while till the baggages from the next flight arrived. My baggage never arrived and yet again, I found angry passengers forming a fresh queue in front of the baggage counter.

“The hell with Air Canada”, I told myself. I wasn’t prepared to wait for my baggage any longer. Fortunately for me, I had packed essential pieces of clothing and some spare extra clothes into my hand baggage along with all the valuables. I have learnt with experience (and also thanks to the movie “meet the parents”) to do this every time I travel long distances. I figured that I should be okay even if my baggage does not arrive in 2/3 days. I desperately needed to freshen up. Besides, I felt as if I was smelling from wearing all the stale clothes from the day before. So, I walked up to the nearest washroom, had a shower, changed clothes and made good use of the toiletries I was carrying with me. This worked. Now I was able to think clearly once again.

I took the nearest elevator to go down, walked up to the Lufthansa check in counter. I met two Lufthansa officials near the check-in machines and told them my story about the lost baggage. “You did everything right. I would suggest you to check in now. You can check in your baggage separately later if you find it” was the suggestion. I found the suggestion quite reasonable. Hence, walking up to the first class check in counter, I produced my itinerary and passport. A nice girl greeted me. I requested isle seats for both my flights and she happily obliged. Finding a friendly person to talk to, I told her my story about last night. She was appalled. “I am so sorry to hear this. You are having a terrible day. I am praying for you. I really am. I hope you get your bag in time”. “Thanks”, I said and received both my boarding passes. I was now secure.

I still had a few more hours at hand. I decided to take my breakfast and then explore YYC a little bit more. I knew there were some stores that sell cowboy hats. For a while, I wanted to have one of those. It was my last opportunity to buy stuff from “home” Canada and make use of the CAD I had with me. I had breakfast at Tim Hortons, a fresh cup of coffee – “ah, I am gonna miss this”, I told myself. I bought a felt cowboy hat and some other essential items/medicines for my long trip ahead. I charged my macbook and ipod and was all set for a 9 hour haul to Germany.

We left YYC (and Canada) at the scheduled time.

My 9 hours on board towards Frankfurt was uneventful. The girl sitting next to me was pretty boring and ugly, so I looked around for a better better company to chat with. Those flying long hours alone would realize that spending those hours simply with ipods, movies and books gets painful if you can’t talk to someone. At least it does for me. Across the isle, there was this young woman traveling somewhere in Europe with her husband and two adorable toddlers, a daughter of about 3 years and a son of about 1 year. My time was well spent watching the kids and talking to their mom. Every time her son started crying out loud, she would look at me with a funny face full of embarrassment. I wasn’t disturbed at all and told her that long flights are not only pain for us but also for them, so it’s not a big deal. “I have two more connecting flights after this. It’s going to be a pain ..”, she said with a north american/european accent. “I have one more to go, 8 hours! …” said I, and she looked at me with surprise. “Where are you heading?”, she asked. When I replied “India”, I could see her trying to figure out the geographical location of the country and trying to find a reason why it would take me 8 hours. “It’s okay, I am used to it”, said I. “Besides you don’t have kids traveling with you …. Have a good trip to India” she told me.

At FRA, as we got off and boarded the bus, we were greeted by -2 deg chilling temperature of the early morning. The day break was still a while away and we silently drove towards terminal 1.

My time at Terminal 1 was spent mostly on getting refreshed again, changing clothes, having shower once more, moving around and looking at duty free shops. I also spent a good amount of time looking at price tags and converting the amount to CAD. “One euro is 1.75 CAD”, I muttered and ultimately refrained from buying pretty much anything. “Yes, Euro is expensive. Ever since the dollar has gone down, we don’t do good business anymore. American travelers are unwilling to buy anything”, a merchant told me. A 13″ Sony VAIO laptop, 4 gig ram, 2.86 Ghz Intel core duo with 200 gig hard drive was priced at 1348/- euros. A 32 gig apple ipod touch was priced at 389/- euros.

I did spend some money browsing and checking the status of my delayed baggage. “Found/waiting for confirmation”, it read.

In due course, I boarded the plane that would take me to my final destination. The final leg of the journey was also uneventful. Finding no one else to talk to (I think south Asians are not, in general great conversationalists), I started conversation with one of the hostesses. I told her that I was meaning to learn German (close friends know already that I have been meaning to learn an european language for a while). I inquired about good German tennis talents of today, told her that I grew up watching Steffi and Baker* and hoped that Germany should produce more tennis stars like them in future.

After little more than 8 hrs, we reached CCU in the dead of the night. I spent the rest of the night at CCU and drove early morning to my former home.

The next 2 days I spent sleeping most of the time, trying to come to terms with jetlag and fatigue from the travel. In between I checked the status of my baggage and it read “received at airport/delivery process initiated”. On the third day (Dec 31st), I called Air Canada central baggage office again. This was a long distance call and I had to wait 20 minutes before being answered. “we think that your baggage is in Calgary but we can’t be sure”. “Do you guys know what flight schedule will be used to deliver my bag?”, I asked. “No sir, we do not have this information”. “Can I call any other office or person who would know this?”. “No sir, this is the only office you should call”, came the answer. I was totally pissed and at this point, for the first time, I lost my temper. I told the guy that I would take this up with Air Canada customer service once I get back and without waiting for a response, hung up.

I had already informed local Lufthansa office at the airport about my delayed baggage. They updated all the information on my file and told me that they would call me as soon as they had any news. On Friday morning (Jan 2nd), I received a call letting me know that there was a bag at FRA bearing my name scheduled to fly to CCU that night. “keep your fingers crossed”, the guy told me. Next day, Saturday Jan 3rd, I received another call letting me know that my bag has arrived and I can pick it up anytime. On the same day, I picked up my much awaited baggage from CCU.

The following are the after thoughts of this experience:

(1) I believe, this experience though painful, made me more educated that I previously was. So a part of me does not regret that I had to go through all this mess.
(2) I am not flying Air Canada again ever, unless I am really broke.
(3) I am probably dumping my travel agent. I don’t think they did a good job even though it was also my fault not to scrutinize the itinerary in the first place. I will be more careful next time.

===
* friends know that even today I am still a die hard fan and supporter of Graf who, according to me, is one of the greatest sports personalities world has ever produced.

It all started on the day before Christmas, Dec 24th 2008. Unprecedented snow the day before and on the morning of 24th resulted in Air Canada canceling all short and medium haul flights from/to Vancouver. 22nd was the last day I had gone out to work for the year and I did find it extremely difficult to navigate the snow and the windchill outside. Thereafter, I stayed indoors and worked from home the next day and the day after. I did not quite realize how bad the situation was until the evening of 24th when I went out again and only then came to know about the flight cancellations. I also noticed Karen’s (someone I know from my gradschool days) facebook updates about her having to wait almost 6 hours before finally catching a flight to Haliax! I was scheduled to fly on 27th morning, my first flight to Calgary was with Air Canada. I was alarmed and disturbed. What was worse is that I had only an hour and half of stop over time between my connecting flights with Lufthansa and given the conditions, I was pretty sure that my flight from Vancouver would be delayed. You might ask why I chose not to fly earlier to Calgary when I booked my tickets? Well, it was my stupidity. When my travel agent gave me the itinerary, I did not quite go through it meticulously and sort of trusted their judgment. Besides, I had made my travel plans long back, during the summer of the same year in the middle of a busy period. I did not quite anticipate this unprecedented snowfall and severe weather conditions back then. The bottom line is, I was now screwed and desperately wanted to reschedule my flight and get a reservation to an earlier flight to Calgary.

I called Air Canada reservations on 24th evening and after the regular “severe weather conditions in certain parts of the country has caused flight disruptions. If your travel plan is imminent hold on else call later …” crap and being put on hold for more than one hour, no one responded to my call. All of the Christmas morning, I continued trying to call them but without any success. This was my second mistake. Instead of calling them, I should have directly gone to YVR and talked to the Air Canada reservation counter. On Christmas evening, the weather became slightly worse and even though by now I was determined to go and talk to Air Canada in person, I could not go out.

On the Boxing day morning I was pretty much determined not to wait any more no matter what. I went straight to Air Canada desk at YVR. After standing in the long queue for about half an hour, Air Canada told me that I should really talk to Lufthansa since my original ticket number was a Lufthansa number. Well, I headed straight to the Lufthansa desk at the International terminal. After understanding my problem and after a little effort, they were able to book me for a flight to Calgary on the same day, 26th evening. I also got a boarding pass right away. I was delighted and decided either to spend the whole night in the Calgary airport or call my friend who lives in Calgary and if it’s not a problem for him, spend the night at his place.

I came home at once. The flight was only few hours away. This was when I realized that me not procrastinating and doing some planning beforehand was intelligent thing to do and so immensely useful. I had virtually done everything that I wanted to do before I left. I had even competed 90% of my packing before 26th. Had I not done so, it would have been a mess. All I had to do now was some last minute things like getting rid of the garbage, doing some laundry, finalize the packing etc and I was ready to go.

On the evening of the boxing day, I left for YVR, fortunately I got a cab right away just in front of my apartment (there were 12 inch of snow all around). Taking this as a good omen, I headed towards YVR. I did not know what was still left in store for me on that day.

On reaching YVR, I checked in directly and headed straight to the designated departure gate.

I was waiting at the departure gate with no schedule information around and no flight updates available on the large display screens. As the scheduled departure time passed away, I became anxious. With no announcements, I decided to check the flight status online (YVR fortunately has free wifi). To my agony, I discovered that the flight had been canceled. What pissed me off was that there were no announcements whatsoever and no instructions on how to rebook alternate flights and collect our checked in baggages. Other co-passengers met with similar fate and one of them, traveling with entire family including small kids, broke into anger at an Air Canada official right there and then. With no announcements regarding where to collect our checked in baggage from, I became worried. I came back to the baggage collection area. I noticed large areas in the corner with lots of luggage simply dumped and left aside. I was told by a security officer that those were the baggages from the passengers of the canceled flights that remained unclaimed and I must find my baggage there. What a chaos and mismanagement! There were others too in similar shoes as I was and they too were looking for their own baggages. I must have spent more than an hour looking for my baggage and not finding it there when suddenly there was this announcement that fresh baggages from canceled flights from the evening were coming in on a certain belt #. It was about 9 PM by then! 2 hours has passed since the departure time of my scheduled flight! I immediately rushed for the belt and after waiting for another 20 minutes or so got back both my baggages! What a relief!

The next task at hand was to rebook my tickets. I went down and walked towards the Air Canada booking counters. To my expectation, I found a huge queue before the counter. Others, who had learnt a hard lesson trying to call Air Canada’s toll free number for a rebooking didn’t want to take any chances this time. At this time, for the first time in the evening, I felt a little better. I looked around and found so many passengers just stranded at YVR late on the boxing day. There were passengers who did not even live here and were looking for a hotel/INN nearby. The snow had yielded to rain by now and it was chilling cold. Lots of passengers decided to spend the night at YVR. Most of them were probably hoping to meet their family and loved ones on the Christmas day and were left stranded at the airport instead. I WAS NOT ALONE! After standing at the rebooking queue for an hour, I did finally manage to talk to an Air Canada rep. I explained to her that I was traveling internationally and I must make my connecting flight at Calgary. She managed to give me a wait listed ticket to Calgary in the 6 AM flight! She told me that even though it was wait listed, I would still probably get a seat. She also told me which queue to stand in the morning for checking in my baggage. It was almost 11 PM by then and I realized that my ordeal for the day was over. I couldn’t do anything more – I had done what I could and all I could do next was to wait patiently for my flight next day morning.

I wanted to have light dinner – so found a Tim Horton’s around that was still open. I finally got something to eat. I wanted to rest a little bit. After all, if I can make it, I will have a rather long journey ahead of me the next day. I know YVR pretty well. I realized that I would not get any comfortable sleeping areas in the domestic section. So I promptly walked to the International terminal. There too I found passengers wanting to travel to United States stranded and left to spend their nights at YVR. Fortunately, in spite of many sleeping passengers, I managed to find a place. I finally stretched myself and tried to relax.

Right now, as I recall the incidents, I am not sure how those hours passed. I did not want to read and stress myself. I was unable to sleep either. I spent some time chatting and browsing. For a while, I talked to others in similar shoes. I never had an opportunity previously to watch YVR during late nights. I found janitors cleaning the floors, people just falling flat on the ground trying to get some rest, stupid commercials continuously running on the TV screens and keeping us company, passengers with canceled or delayed flights or flights pretty early in the morning arriving late at night, the huge screen in front showing flight schedules for US bound flights on 27th …

I was trying to assess whether I should blame anyone for all this chaos and mess?! So many like me not able to be with their loved ones back home. So many spending sleepless nights at YVR. Who should take the blame for not letting us meet our loved ones? Is it going to be the city of Vancouver for collecting taxes from us and not remaining prepared enough for the snow? I had heard a few flying in from the east discussing how unprepared and inefficient Vancouver was as opposed to Toronto/Ottawa etc with regards to snow. They even went on to say that they were not looking forward to visiting the city again. Should I blame Air Canada for being grossly inefficient, incompetent and not being prepared to handle the weather and the rush during holiday season? Should we blame ourselves for not anticipating this and taking corrective measures? I don’t know. I am pretty sure there would be angry discussions on the cbc.ca regarding this but I had no energy left for the day to do any digging. Finally I felt asleep.

I woke up just before 4 AM on the morning of 27th. It was time for me to get ready. I freshened up and walked towards the check-in queues. To my surprise I found sleeping passengers occupying the floor and forming a queue at the same time. Passengers flying all over Canada could be seen here. I felt sad at the predicament of all these hapless people. We waited there until counters started to open just before 5 AM. To the surprise of many, Air Canada started calling for passengers flying at 6 AM. Obviously, those who were towards the front of the queue and had waited night long had no priority. Where as I moved forward, I could see angry passengers arguing with a certain Air Canada lady. I did not have time to think. If I were not to make the flight, I would be stranded in Calgary and also possibly at Frankfurt as well.

When I handed in my wait-listed ticket, the asian lady doing the check-ins looked at me with wrinkles as if I was in the wrong queue. I explained to her my predicament, that I must make this flight, otherwise I would be stranded elsewhere, outside Canada. I told her that I was instructed by an Air Canada official to stand in this queue the day before when the ticket was issued. She discussed it with a coworker, grudged that the flight was already full and then agreed to check-in my luggage with lot of disgust. When I told her that I had only one bag to check in, she was dissatisfied. “Only one bag? “, as if having more bags would be even bigger grounds for disqualification from boarding the flight as I was only a standby and confirmed ticket holders had priority. She gave me a wait-listed boarding pass with yellow tag and somehow (not sure how/why) checked in my baggage which was 2 kilos over weight. “good luck” she said and I murmured “I wouldn’t need your wishes to make this journey!”

I headed straight through the security checks, to the departure gate. I handed my boarding pass (the second person among the stand-by passengers) to the official there who would have the final numbers, explained to her my situation. She assured me that she would issue me a final boarding pass as soon as she had definite numbers about available seats. I met another funny interesting guy there who was traveling to meet his family in Saskatchewan (through Calgary). He was stranded for 2 days. He had spent the entire night before at YVR, just like me and also had a wait listed boarding pass just like me. We waited in patience.

Eventually, after clearing wait listed passengers with kids*, both of us got a confirmed boarding pass (with a seat #). We celebrated with joy. This guy called his dad to inform him that he was finally making his way to Calgary and that he should be home soon. What a final relief to be able to leave Vancouver! Our flight took off at 6:30 AM. We watched a beautiful day break from the window as we headed towards our immediate destination. “all my bad luck is now over with this flight”, I told to myself. I did not know what more was waiting for me at YYC. At YYC, I parted ways with this other guy – we had become good buddies by then and headed towards the luggage collection area.

(… to be concluded) …

* passengers with confirmed reservations were cleared first

I believe my write-up on Traudl Junge would be incomplete without mentioning one more fact. I wrote in my note that non-Jewish population in Germany during the early days of the War were oblivious to Holocaust.  They were in fact living an increasingly comfortable life and for them Hitler had brought hope for the future and the belief that they could win the War. Of course, people like Hans Junge knew that something was wrong and one has to go beyond the shadows of Hitler in order to know the truth.  But aside these individual cases, there were largely two separate groups of people who felt the real truth. One group was that of those who witnessed the bloodshed themselves, with their own eyes. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_assisted_Jews_during_the_Holocaust lists most of these well known persons and the reason for them being recognized as the “Righteous among the nations”. We have seen one such case in the movie Schindler’s List. There are plenty more. There was one another group that also came to realize the truth and what was really going on. This group, lead by a young University of Munich professor, called themselves as the White Rose ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose). They distributed leaflets in the University … they could only distribute six of them during the period from June 1942 to February 1943. In one of these leaflets for example, the group writes: