The ride from home to airport was a story in itself. The transport strike has created a scarcity of oil. But I didn't anticipate that it as a cause of concern and left home just in time. But then, tragedy stuck. Even after waiting for almost 15 mins, no taxi/auto showed up. The time was already around 10:10pm and I was supposed to be at airport 30 mins back for my 12:00 flight. With nothing else to go about with, my bro and me decided to go to airport on bike :) I must say it was a sight ! I was all dressed up for any party! Blazer, party shirt, a pair of jeans, a pair of heavy boots. And there I was driving a bike on mumbai roads with my bro holding on to the big suitcase and I was balancing the cabin bag over the oil tank. When I arrived at the airport, I tried avoiding the faces that turned around to check out my royal arrival :)) But all is well that ends well. I managed to complete all check in processes in time and got onto the flight.
The journey to Singapore aboard an AI flight was like any other AI flights: boring. However, one incident does stand out and deserves a special mention. As the plane tookoff, I stuck a conversation with my neighbour who was working with Cisco in SFO. (Sorry...i didn't ask his name, nor did I give mine). We talked about a bunch of things before the plane got stable in air and the next thing I did was hit the assistance button on the dashboard above. A middleaged steward showed up and I put a silly request through: Can you please get me a lot of water? I am feeling quite thirsy. My neighbour also asked for water politely. The steward left and in a min a lady(quite good my AI standards!) appeared and handed us both a couple of 250mL bottles each. We thought it was taken care of but very next moment the steward appeared with a 1.5L bottle of mineral bottle in one hand and 2 cups in other, and handed it over to us so that we can satisfy our thirst. He handed over the bottle and glasses to us and left. He didn't even bother to pour the water in the glasses. Phew ! Such arrogance! This happens only in Air India :) I tried to catch some sleep after that as it was a 5 hour flight and I had to directly go to office, however i wasn't successful and tried watching some movie. There were some 5 stupid channels and you can understand the choices that I had by the fact that I watched "C Kompany" (or whatever was the name) even though I knew it was a pathetic movie. I wish I could fly back a different airlines on return but I can't :(
The only other event of significance was my setting foot in Singapore. A different country governed by a different set of rules and I was an alien, once again. The first glance of the Singapore reminded me of Chicago airport. That long walk that I took from the flight gate to the immigration desk in Chicago a few years back had my heart pounding. Given that Uncle Sams land is known for its rigorous(and sometimes uncertain) processes, I was on my toes not to make any mistakes that would cause me to be deported back to India on the next flight. Believe me I did have that in my mind :) But nothing of that sort happened and I entered USA successfully,like many other aliens, and stayed there for over 2 years.
However, this time, the feelings weren't similar. On the contrary, I was all prepared for it. The only thing I was going to do was to answer the questions honestly. If they put me on the next flight back to India, I wouldn't have minded that. I thought of one of the wooden board in the hall of St. Joseph's School (where I had done my first 12 years of schooling) that read "Honesty is the best policy." And I smiled :) But nothing unexpected happened, except for my standing in a wrong queue for over 30 mins before realising that this may not be the queue for me, which is when I approached the immigration guys for guidance and then the pointed me to the right counter. And within minutes, I was out in the open, breathing in Singapore. One of the boards read : Welcome to Singapore. I wasn't able to click a snap there as I was in a hurry, but I will try to get a snap taken on the day of my return.
I reached home around 10 in the morning at the TCS Transit Quarters, got ready in a hurry and took a taxi to office. Rest of the day was as uneventful as a first day at any place usually is: the customary introductions, formalities, understanding the job and all that. The evening was what really turned out to be fun. I took the company bus that dropped me near Bedok MRT (local METRO station), and I decided to figure out the way home on my own rather than taking a taxi, and explore the city in the process. As it would turn out, I took almost 2.5 hours to figure out the route to home that was just 15 mins away :) I asked the people around the MRT but most of them did not have a clue where my street was. I asked a few shopowners,but they weren't of any help either. I asked a few book shops and paper vendors if they have any street maps of singapore, but they didn't have anything worth buying. Hell, I even found a library and went in and tried checking out the Singapore section to see if they had any street maps, but nothing was available. How much I missed our india's Paan Shops at that time :( Finally someone pointed his hands in one direction and I headed in that direction, and reached home in about 15 mins. But the good thing was that I explored the Bedok MRT area well during that 2.5 hours, which came in handy during the later days.
The rest of evening was no more than a normal day. I met Naveen at home and he game me a good overview of life in Singapore as he has been here quite a few times. Finally I called it a day. The jetlag was already creeping up my body to my head.
