Fruggums - Filed under 'nyc'

December 21, 2009

JFK - BOM in 28 hours

That's right. A trip that should take around 14 hours doubled into 28. Here's the story.

Snowstorm is about to hit NYC so I get out early to the airport. Reach at around 2, check-in, security and hanging about by 3. Flight departs at 6.

We're all on the plane and JFK starts getting raped by snow. It takes two hours to get the plane moving and then de-iced. So we leave by around 8PM. Around half an hour after we leave, JFK shuts down.

Delay : 2 hours

All goes well and we reach Brussels an hour late but that's alright since I still have an hour to catch my flight to Bombay. So we get into the holding pattern over Brussels with visibility at nil. Captain Oliver informs us that we can do this for two hours if we have to. An hour later, Brussels shuts down.

Delay : 3 hours

So we head over to the alternate airport 10 minutes away.

Liege.

I know you have no idea where that is. Well, a bit southwest of Brussels, Liege would be the transit point between Earth and Eternal Doom.

There's pretty much nothing at Liege airport. Four tortured souls comprise the ground staff and the only excitement around is the large TNT logistics hub. Mainly a freight airport, the place didn't even have facilities to offload luggage. Belgian authorities didn't want us to get off the plane anyways (not even the Belgian citizens, some of whom lived 30 mins away). So there we were, stuck in Liege, sitting on the plane waiting for Brussels to open up again.

2 hours later, Liege shuts down.

So now with both Liege and Brussels closed, the situation becomes pretty aggravating. Note that throughout all this there's a baby crying a row ahead of me. It wouldn't stop throughout the entire flight/ordeal.

Adding to Liege's reputation of 'Gateway to Hell', it has no food. The pilot was gracious enough to procure something from somewhere (apparently a catering company). What it ended up being was a bun (a third the size of a normal bun) with a slice of ham (the 'non-vegetarian' option) or cheese (the 'vegetarian' option). I wish I had taken a photo of this thing. It was so small you could drop it in the aisle and you'd need a torch to find it. That's what they managed to organize after four and a half hours of sitting on the apron in Liege.

2 hours later (now we've been here for more than 6 hours, still in the plane), the new captain (Captain Oliver exceeded the maximum permissible flying hours for his day) announced Brussels was open. Hey, this is great news! We should be out of here in minutes! The plane was de-iced and then we waited to get going.

But no.

Being Liege, gateway to hell, they didn't have a pushback truck with the adapter to attach to an Airbus (hell has obviously been privatized by an American company). So they had to send for one from god-knows-where.

Well it did finally arrive eventually. Our new douchebag captain didn't realize that the plane would ice up again and he had to begin de-icing all over again after we did push back. This was to be expected.

So we flew the 10 minutes back to Brussels. It was a beautiful 10 minutes though. Rural Belgium, covered in snow, at an orange sunset, and we were hardly a few thousand feet up thanks to our bus-ride-like-trip.

Delay : 10 hours

So we arrive at Brussels and are instructed to go to B40 to figure out the situation. The flight to Bombay left hours ago, so they had no option but to send us to -

Chennai. Jet Airways being the only airline flying to India out of Brussels.

Of course this flight departed an hour late too. Passing over the Arabian Sea we flew right past Bombay and into Chennai. The next connecting flight to Bombay was around two hours later by the time us JFK people got our bags (absolutely last, of course).

Delay : 11 hours

And then the flight to Chennai, two hours later. We had to pass through customs and immigration at Chennai before heading to the domestic terminal. At which point we weren't allowed in because we didn't have tickets. The Jet Airways staff was of course, ill-prepared and as confused as a Beanie cap with opposite pole magnets in each rotor. After finally getting in by harassing some trying-to-be-courteous asshole staff guy we get onto this all-economy 737 and begin the one and a half hour flight to Bombay. Half an hour late, of course.

Delay : 13 hours

(License for this image : Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical Share-Alike)

Flying into Bombay was a treat actually. We flew right over the tip of Bombay (the docks, Gateway of India, all that) and then circled round into the airport.

Then finally, landed in Bombay, got the bags, hopped into a cab, bought a bottle of Bisleri en route, and headed home.

Arrived 14 hours after my scheduled arrival.

Now most of this was due to weather in Belgium, agreed. But Jet Airways had a big part to play in this mess as well. Picking an alternate airport which is completely unprepared to handle a diverted flight (in terms of equipment on the ground and basic things such as food) was just stupid. That was the main cause for much of the suffering. During the rest of it they managed alright though.

Anyways, good to be home.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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November 16, 2009

$15 and a Year of Jail

"The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world - by far" (here's an excellent read about that). Today I got a first hand experience of that.

No, I'm not blogging from jail (though I would throw a pretty sick 'Free Az All' campaign online if I was)

A month ago I ordered a roundtrip to Jamaica station for a trip to Canada. Its cheaper and it means I don't have to wait in a line with luggage. Tickets arrive in 1-3 business days, usually.

So when they didn't show up for a month I called to ask them to refund me. I thought this would be straightforward but it isn't. Now, things get lost in the mail. Its impossible for every single envelope to be delivered successfully given the volume of mail USPS handles and the sometimes ragged appearance of the people walking around with the mail. So mine was one of those unlucky ones. Ok, they can grasp that concept, even though this a government company.

They send tickets in unmarked non-privacy (which means you can hold it against the light and see its a ticket in there) plain white envelope.

A few days later I get a form. The usual regrettance-inconvenience schmitz part and then a form I have to send back. It just scared the wits out of me.

Essentially its a legal document that makes me swear that they're actually lost in the mail and I didn't get them. If I'm lying here, I'm lying to the government. There's a lot of the word 'perjury' sprinkled all over this thing. Swearing is alright, I guess. Its the penalties that really got me.

If it turns out, if the ticket that I don't have i.e. somebody else might, gets used, they can prosecute me and fine me $1000 and... send me to prison for a year.

A year.

That's a ridiculous penalty for cheating a railroad company out of $15. For one if the postman who nicked my ticket decided to use it, there's no way to track the person who actually used the ticket, all that's known is that someone used it, someone lied about getting it, someone needs to go to court.

Suppose these ridiculous threats are just deterrents? Well then, to the person who actually had their tickets lost in the mail and signs this thing for a refund, good guts you got there. I'd never sign this thing. Even if one would never end up being convinced and given a sentence, having to land up in court for such a thing is maddening in itself. They can keep their schmeasly $15.

Think about the loss they were to make if indeed someone did cheat them using this system (whichever mad person it would be). They're hauling an extra 60-100kg (on average) for a few miles. Trains can do that pretty ok without posing much of a severe threat to their operation or others' safety. This unlike people with knives and guns walking around who are the people who happen to go to prison too, like this man who cheated the government out of $15 (which isn't enough for more than a day's living in Manhattan)

Just another one of the tales that makes this country so fascinating to study.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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November 13, 2009

The Block System

Click here to download:

The_Block_System.zip (411 KB)

In New York its easy to take the block system for granted. Since streets and avenues and numbers are all in logical order it's pretty hard to get lost here (in Manhattan).

Compared to Mumbai (Bombay, i.e.) which is a haphazard system of curvy roads and lines in a big mush where the names of streets hardly holds much value except for the postal service. After getting the chance to experience both, lets compare.

1. Noise

If you walk down a street in between avenues in the middle of Manhattan with no traffic on it, its completely silent. The block system is supreme when it comes to noise control between streets. The buildings on both sides act as a vertical funnel for the noise channeling it upwards so it doesn't spill into the next street and an ambulance siren will only reverberate in a street in the second it crosses the intersection at the avenue.

Unfortunately for the people living in the vertical funnel of noise, it only serves to amplify the sirens and ambient traffic. So everyone gets their fair share as the vehicle screams along.

In a non-block system (Mumbai specifically, of course), noise isolation between sections is poor. In this system, buildings aren't always facing each other, and due to the unsymmetrical (and fairly larger) plots of land, the buildings don't always take up the entire plot (leaving space for parking garages or a lawn, or as of late swimming pools and gyms). Hence there isn't much channeling of noise and depending on your situation the noise can simply travel up to your floor because it radiates all over - however, although one could possibly be on the receiving end of a larger quantity of noise due to the space involved, there's no funnel to direct and amplify it. So the overall received level of noise, is less, especially so if you aren't facing a road. Since Mumbai isn't completely flat (unlike Manhattan, which is for the most part), elevation varies, roads twist, and people can land lucky situations.

2. Transport

The block system wins in transport (both in reducing congestion and time for travel). A grid system distributes traffic extremely efficiently compared to a non-block system. Manhattan has two major arteries on the periphery of the island (FDR, Hudson Pkway), which makes it easy to skip over as many blocks are required then re-enter the system. Mumbai has similar, but these arteries are a part of the non-block system instead of being separate entities. That is, they are roads used to access housing, business etc. while Manhattan's arteries are dedicated highways.

Its easier to get around when the streets are numbered and the direction of traffic alternates. In a non-block system its just simply the opposite. Random roads become one-ways and its impossible to know the name of every street in Mumbai.

If one avenue gets clogged in a grid, the traffic can simply be diverted into adjoining streets to find alternate routes - since streets alternate in direction, the jam can dissipate easier. In a non-block system, if one main road gets clogged, it just spreads a traffic failure to connecting roads - because of the haphazard manner in which the traffic flows.

This is also complicated by signal issues. In a block system signals are timed extremely efficiently to ensure traffic flows in neat blocks (you can notice this anytime you look down an avenue in Manhattan). In a non-block system, due to major intersections composing of more than four roads (each in different directions sometimes) - signals have a hard time ensuring an efficient flow especially when the pattern reverses between the two rush hours.

3. Space & View

In a block system, there's a very good chance your view is simply someone else's window. Since every building occupies its entire space, unless you're higher than the building you're facing - your view is pretty much their view which is you (get it?). Having a-building-as-a-view-system also means getting cut off from the sun when you're in its shadow. An exception to this is (other than being higher up) is the corner view. The people in the corners of the buildings can usually see down the avenues/streets **

In a non-block system, there's a good chance your view encompasses more than just another building. Again, due to the erratic sizes of plots, spaces for garages, orientations of buildings, irregular width of roads, varying topography etc. etc. there's a good chance you're going to be able to see more. The non-block system also means that if you happen to be staring into another building, the gap is probably a bit larger. Since a non-block systems' edge artery roadways aren't highways a lot more people get a view of the sea.

** Another exception is anyone overlooking central park, which is the best living view on the planet, that very, very few can ever afford.

And that, is the block system.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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November 8, 2009

Wolfmother

Today I went for Wolfmother with thenewno2 and the Heartless Bastards.

(The opening acts were pretty darn good I'll say, but lets move on)

I landed up in Row 4 of the madness that is Terminal 5 in NY's westside. As soon as Wolfmother came on, man, the destructive energy this crowd had was insane. The moshing was extreme - both my feet were hardly on the ground during the entire thing. Crowdsurfers galore, just toppling off all around. I circulated between Row 2 and 6 and managed to cover almost the entire stage laterally in my moshing journeys.

Wolfmother brought so much P-P-P-P-PPPPOW! with them. And the improv was great, Andrew was on top of his game, jumping around 4 feet ahead of me (vocals were top notch almost album quality). My ears are still ringing (1 hour, 20 mins later) - they were that heavy. Voice is pretty rustled up too combined with a headthrob from the headbanging. By the end of the whole thing I felt like I had had a shower over the course of two hours - my hair was soaking wet. This was at least 500 calories of cardio here (and strength training for those triceps with all those people flying above me)

Back Round and (of course) Joker & The Thief were the best two of the night. Especially the latter, this song ranks up there with Aces High in terms of concert experience. WILD. Just WILD.

F**kin ace show.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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September 28, 2009

Joel, My Pasta Guy

For whatever reason I've ended up talking to a lot more people this year.

It has become routine that I get a pasta every alternate night from the cafe below my dorm. I used to get it made by the same guy every time last year and it was only a few weeks before I left for the summer that I got his name. Well, he left the job and this year I've found a new fellow who I meet nearly every day at 9 30. Every day we inch a little forward in conversation. His English isn't very good which is why I try and keep it simple small talk. Today I found him crouched under the counter holding a first-gen iPhone in his hand. Now that's a conversation starter for me. So we got talking and eventually he mentioned how he has no music on the thing. He can't afford an AT&T phone plan so using it as a phone is out. So I gladly offered to put some on to it for him, since he didn't have a computer - let alone an internet connection and a lot of music.

So for the second time so far this semester I took my laptop out, set up in the cafe, got the cables and started trying to figure out what sort of music he likes. He seemed to be in to metal and rock which were my speciality. He didn't know many artists names. He knew a few, so I gave him all I had from those he mentioned. He also mentioned an artist that I don't have which I'll procure eventually. So when I connected the iPhone it asked what I wanted to name it, so I finally got his name, which is Joel. And then dragged all that he wanted into a playlist and left it to sync (my lossless files meant it took an hour in the end). During this time I got to know him a little better.

The part which hit me right in the face is the guy is hardly a year older than me. He works from 10am to midnight, I think everyday. I obviously didn't ask him what he gets paid but I'm sure it isn't enough for the amount of work these guys put it (they're hardly ever idle). He said he wanted to learn English so he could take some courses at Baruch across the street "I want to improve my life man" - coming from a guy not much older than you working 14 hours a day isn't easy to hear. I know that a lot of the world is full of much worse than this. Wars, poverty, hunger, starvation... and there are so many people in far worse situations than he, but I don't have an income to help those more in need and worse still I haven't had many a chance to come face to face with them like I have with him. This probably hit me a lot more because I'm here, living in Manhattan, going to one of the best visual arts colleges on the planet, fully paid for by my mother and uncles - and this guy who works at the cafe downstairs, less than a year older than me, is going to make his life better all on his own.

I found out his birthday is October 27th (I hope I heard it right) so I can spare a bit to get him a decent pair of headphones and figure out a way I can help him learn better English other than just talking to him a bit more.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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September 24, 2009

Muse/U2

I have this strange costly habit ; whichever band I see live I just have to buy a shirt. It ends up being a costly affair (just like the concerts themselves) but it has become an expensive tradition from the start. So I have my little collection of memoirs from some of the best shows I'll ever see - especially because a few of these bands may not be touring in the years to come, some of them are just getting old, physically - and I'm only going to be in New York for so long. I think one of the reasons I go for them is they're a direct support to the band (monetarily).

If you ever get the chance to see either of these bands live - GO. Both were fantastic live and U2 put on the most phenomenal show I've seen. The scale of their production is unprecedented. Their stage, the lighting, the 360 degree screen, I mean, no other band has created a concert experience quite like it, and U2 has managed it and turned it into something out of this world. There is nothing that can substitute actually being there and taking it in so its useless to go on about it. If you ever can, go for it, even if you aren't a U2 fan (I wasn't till last night)

Edit : I forgot to mention. I was originally row 40 behind the band. Was a good seat, but not the best by far. Luckily this couple got separated so I traded with one of them for a row 3 seat in front of the band towards the sides. Far far far better than my original seat because I could see the whole stadium (no Mezzanine hanging over my head since row 40 is all the way to the back).

Here are some photos from last night's show (U2 and Muse, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford at the Meadowlands, September 23rd 2009)

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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May 31, 2009

Comparisons, Analysis

Well, you haven't been hearing much from me have you.

I've been tweeting once a day, skipping e-mails and not doing much at all in general, not bothering about all the complexities that have shown through on this blog in the past few months.

It's because when you're back home it all changes back again. I don't need everyone to know what I'm upto because most of them are now a phone call (or a short drive) away. There's no ranting because I have lots of other interesting and fun things to do other than complain and think about things.

Goodbye.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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March 2, 2009