I met a young lady recently who had read my blog. This surprised me. I really did not think anybody read my blog. I write something when I am in the mood, or I feel an idea hit me.
She talked about my US visit, so I thought a follow up piece was advisable. My suit bag and what happened afterwards.
Lois called the Starbucks in San Antonio airport and, guess what, they had my suit bag! No bomb squad had been near it, no sniffing dogs, no nothing. They were also good enough to Fedex it to my office in NYC, where the package arrived an hour before I was due to leave for the airport to fly home.
God bless Texas.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Photo ID
Ping!
The sound of an email coming in. Almost always about 23 hours before my Swiss flight with the web checkin reminder. An easy enough process which results in a text message on my iPhone with a link to a boarding card.
Zurich airport has changed a lot in the last few years. The latest development has been the combining of multiple security check areas into one large one that herds the traveler through a large duty free shop right after the security check. (I have learned to walk through this without being distracted!)
The other change has been the introduction of multiple "turnstiles" where I scan the QR code of my boarding card that's on my phone. Since my trip this time is to Austria which is in the Schengen area, there is no immigration check.
I zip through security and am at the gate where I place my phone on another scanner which gets me into the plane.
I don't know if you noticed something missing in the above process? Let's go back a few steps:
1. I did not stop at a checkin desk
2. I did not stop at an immigration window
3. I did not stop at the Senator lounge
Nothing unusual so far? So what did I miss?
This is what: Nobody asked me for a photo ID in the whole process of arriving at the airport and sitting down in the plane! For all it mattered to anyone, I could have been Santa Claus. Or Muammar Qaddafi's ghost. Yes my name was on the boarding pass, but it could have been anyone traveling.
So what about security? What if I was Osama bin Laden, who had bought a ticket in the name of Ashok Kishore and gone through the whole process above? Considering that I cannot enter our office building in New York without a photo ID, this whole episode seems a bit bizarre. The Americans must be so far ahead of the Europeans in making us secure.
(By the way, the SBB conductor asked to see my passport when checking my digital ticket that I had bought via their app.)
So let's think about this for a second. I have flown from Zurich to Vienna, checked into a hotel, and flown back home and NOBODY asked to see a photo ID? I mean, what's wrong with everybody? Or should the question be : What's right with everybody?
How secure are we when our ID's are checked at every stage of travel through airports and hotels? What is it that makes this process more secure than NOT checking the ID at all? What if the person traveling on this trip was Srishti instead and she had just taken my ticket and used it herself? Would that make the airport or airline less secure than if her ID was checked?
Food for thought.
In the meantime, I am so enjoying this document free travel within the Schengen area. And it did not make me feel unsafe at all, just more relaxed and comfortable.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The Last Play at Shea
Ca 1980. Introduction to Beatles. What? You've got to be kidding me, right? 1980?
I wish. I was never really into music while growing up, except for the songs from Hindi movies that I heard on Akashvani or Radio Ceylon (Binaca Geetmala by the legendary Amin Sayani). Even at college, I had very little exposure to Western music, apart from bits and pieces from a dorm mate Somerjit Singh who strummed the guitar to Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens songs. We played bridge and drank cheap whiskey. Somerjit, in our final year (1979), went back to Manipur, joined the Mao-ist rebels and was shot dead by the Indian army. It left a deep impression on me at the time but is not part of this story.
I got closer to a girl during my days at IIMC and she introduced me to the Beatles. As young people at the time tended to do, I plunged myself fully into the experience. I knew all the songs and could identify each one from the first chord. I knew all their concerts, all their shows. The Beatles at Shea stadium was a big deal, though I did not quite know all the detail at the time.
Cut to the late 80's. This young girl is now my wife and she introduces me to the music of Billy Joel. I love it. I enjoy it. I know all the songs. Another late introduction. Joel has been a huge rock star since the 70's. I was just late to the party.
To round off this story (I AM coming to the point!), I had once asked someone to bring me a NY baseball cap. What I got was a NY Mets cap. I thought it was amazingly expensive at 30$ in 1991. To top it all, people looked at it and said "you have a Mets cap?". See, I knew nothing of baseball either!
So when I read about the movie that carries the name of the title of this blog entry, I had to see it. I just had to. There were some associations and it was set to Billy Joel music. (I told you I was getting to the point.)
It was a wonderful experience. Everything just came together. Shea, The Beatles, Mets, Billy Joel. Suddenly it all got connected. I loved it. The twist at the end made it even more worthwhile.
I don't know if you will like this movie, but it's going on my "save" list.
I wish. I was never really into music while growing up, except for the songs from Hindi movies that I heard on Akashvani or Radio Ceylon (Binaca Geetmala by the legendary Amin Sayani). Even at college, I had very little exposure to Western music, apart from bits and pieces from a dorm mate Somerjit Singh who strummed the guitar to Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens songs. We played bridge and drank cheap whiskey. Somerjit, in our final year (1979), went back to Manipur, joined the Mao-ist rebels and was shot dead by the Indian army. It left a deep impression on me at the time but is not part of this story.
I got closer to a girl during my days at IIMC and she introduced me to the Beatles. As young people at the time tended to do, I plunged myself fully into the experience. I knew all the songs and could identify each one from the first chord. I knew all their concerts, all their shows. The Beatles at Shea stadium was a big deal, though I did not quite know all the detail at the time.
Cut to the late 80's. This young girl is now my wife and she introduces me to the music of Billy Joel. I love it. I enjoy it. I know all the songs. Another late introduction. Joel has been a huge rock star since the 70's. I was just late to the party.
To round off this story (I AM coming to the point!), I had once asked someone to bring me a NY baseball cap. What I got was a NY Mets cap. I thought it was amazingly expensive at 30$ in 1991. To top it all, people looked at it and said "you have a Mets cap?". See, I knew nothing of baseball either!
So when I read about the movie that carries the name of the title of this blog entry, I had to see it. I just had to. There were some associations and it was set to Billy Joel music. (I told you I was getting to the point.)
It was a wonderful experience. Everything just came together. Shea, The Beatles, Mets, Billy Joel. Suddenly it all got connected. I loved it. The twist at the end made it even more worthwhile.
I don't know if you will like this movie, but it's going on my "save" list.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Visiting the US of A - Follow up
I met a young lady recently who had read my blog. This surprised me. I really did not think anybody read my blog. I write something when I am in the mood, or I feel an idea hit me.
She talked about my US visit, so I thought a follow up piece was advisable. My suit bag and what happened afterwards.
Lois called the Starbucks in San Antonio airport and, guess what, they had my suit bag! No bomb squad had been near it, no sniffing dogs, no nothing. They were also good enough to Fedex it to my office in NYC, where the package arrived an hour before I was due to leave for the airport to fly home.
God bless Texas.
She talked about my US visit, so I thought a follow up piece was advisable. My suit bag and what happened afterwards.
Lois called the Starbucks in San Antonio airport and, guess what, they had my suit bag! No bomb squad had been near it, no sniffing dogs, no nothing. They were also good enough to Fedex it to my office in NYC, where the package arrived an hour before I was due to leave for the airport to fly home.
God bless Texas.
On a lazy Sunday afternoon
I wrote this piece a few weeks ago, but did not post it to the blog. Hope the link is accessible.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6630090/Ashok%20docs/On_a_lazy_Sunday_afternoon.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6630090/Ashok%20docs/On_a_lazy_Sunday_afternoon.pdf
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Visiting the US of A - March 2011
Notes taken at random during trip to USA in March
I don't like the red eye flights. I don't like waking up before dawn and going to the airport. This is despite the fact that I often wake up at the crack of dawn to go to the gym. It must be because going to the gym is almost a leisurely way of waking up, whereas going to the airport is very time sensitive. Sometimes I don't sleep well before an early morning flight. But one has to do what one has to do.
Fortunately, there is a certain predictability in going through Zürich airport, specially if one takes the train. No surprises, just smooth sailing, so to say. Following the advice of my better half, I did take the earlier train; and that was the right call.
Frankfurt airport (never one of my favourite airports in Europe) was another story. Not that I had any problems, but it seemed like I was going to walk to Houston. It was about 35-40 minutes of constant movement (mostly walking) to gate C15 from the gate I landed at in terminal A. It was faaar. And the whole system of getting to gate C15 appeared to be really complicated. In the end, I needed all the transit time available to me for, oh well, transiting.
A Boeing 747! Been a long time since I have been on one of these. I recall Swissair used to fly them and business class was upstairs with storage space by the window that you could also use to put up your feet. Then there was a KLM flight to Calcutta via New Delhi where I sat in the nose of the plane. Less comfortable than Swissair. Lufthansa is not quite Emirates or SQ, but having the seat next to me empty helps. Some of the other industry types were sitting in the nose, but I was a few rows back.
(By the way, the stewardesses are doing well in remembering my name. LX or LH is normally not great at this, unlike EK and SQ)
It's gonna be a long day. I woke up at 4:45 AM CET and am scheduled to land at 9:00 PM CET (3 pm local time). That's 16 hours already and I have most of the day in Houston still ahead of me. Ah well. Maybe I will meet an old friend.
(P.S. Video on demand sucks. Selection is ok. Screen quality is only good for tv shows)
So I had a little run-in with Hertz since they didn't have a satnav for the Yukon they gave me. I didn't want to wait and neither did I have a ladder to climb in, so I swapped it for a Mazda 5. The problem came later when Richard called it a Smart car and forced me to swap it back to a bigger one. Guess what? Hertz screwed it up again, and just didn't have my reservation! So we got a Ford Flex from Avis, which was big enough for His Majesty, but the booking agent screwed up the return location and I did not have the energy to fight the $50 extra charge they slapped on me. In other words, this trip was rental car hell.
I don't know if it was this or the pre-occupation with meetings, but it did not even occur to me to run by 31 Meadowridge Place, while I was at The Woodlands. To be frank, I think I would have skipped it even if it had occurred to me.
Socially, it was a strange NPRA. It felt like I had a lot of meetings, yet it felt that I did not meet anybody. I guess it was because I did not go to any of the parties or hang out in the lobby of the MRC. Actually, I had no meetings at the MRC at all, which must have been the first time ever!
(I have restarted writing this after a month's break, just being busy with stuff. So the memory fades ...)
The next part of my trip was eventful. The flights were from San Antonio to DC and then to La Guardia. As I boarded at DC, I thought that something was amiss. Wracking my brains for a few minutes, I realized that I had left my suit bag at the Starbucks in SA airport! 2 jackets and 2 ties in it. I am almost more upset at losing the ties ... I can't think what to do, so all I do is email Lois and Smita to tell them what happened. Then I fall into conversation with the person sitting next to me. He turns out to be a cop in Central Park, as well as a hobby-ist jazz musician. We spend a very enjoyable hour talking of all kinds of things: we both know at some level of consciousness that we will never meet again, or remember the things we talked about.
Three days at work in Darien and New York, and I am headed home in time to see the World Cup Final. India v. Sri Lanka. Would be fun.
I don't like the red eye flights. I don't like waking up before dawn and going to the airport. This is despite the fact that I often wake up at the crack of dawn to go to the gym. It must be because going to the gym is almost a leisurely way of waking up, whereas going to the airport is very time sensitive. Sometimes I don't sleep well before an early morning flight. But one has to do what one has to do.
Fortunately, there is a certain predictability in going through Zürich airport, specially if one takes the train. No surprises, just smooth sailing, so to say. Following the advice of my better half, I did take the earlier train; and that was the right call.
Frankfurt airport (never one of my favourite airports in Europe) was another story. Not that I had any problems, but it seemed like I was going to walk to Houston. It was about 35-40 minutes of constant movement (mostly walking) to gate C15 from the gate I landed at in terminal A. It was faaar. And the whole system of getting to gate C15 appeared to be really complicated. In the end, I needed all the transit time available to me for, oh well, transiting.
A Boeing 747! Been a long time since I have been on one of these. I recall Swissair used to fly them and business class was upstairs with storage space by the window that you could also use to put up your feet. Then there was a KLM flight to Calcutta via New Delhi where I sat in the nose of the plane. Less comfortable than Swissair. Lufthansa is not quite Emirates or SQ, but having the seat next to me empty helps. Some of the other industry types were sitting in the nose, but I was a few rows back.
(By the way, the stewardesses are doing well in remembering my name. LX or LH is normally not great at this, unlike EK and SQ)
It's gonna be a long day. I woke up at 4:45 AM CET and am scheduled to land at 9:00 PM CET (3 pm local time). That's 16 hours already and I have most of the day in Houston still ahead of me. Ah well. Maybe I will meet an old friend.
(P.S. Video on demand sucks. Selection is ok. Screen quality is only good for tv shows)
So I had a little run-in with Hertz since they didn't have a satnav for the Yukon they gave me. I didn't want to wait and neither did I have a ladder to climb in, so I swapped it for a Mazda 5. The problem came later when Richard called it a Smart car and forced me to swap it back to a bigger one. Guess what? Hertz screwed it up again, and just didn't have my reservation! So we got a Ford Flex from Avis, which was big enough for His Majesty, but the booking agent screwed up the return location and I did not have the energy to fight the $50 extra charge they slapped on me. In other words, this trip was rental car hell.
I don't know if it was this or the pre-occupation with meetings, but it did not even occur to me to run by 31 Meadowridge Place, while I was at The Woodlands. To be frank, I think I would have skipped it even if it had occurred to me.
Socially, it was a strange NPRA. It felt like I had a lot of meetings, yet it felt that I did not meet anybody. I guess it was because I did not go to any of the parties or hang out in the lobby of the MRC. Actually, I had no meetings at the MRC at all, which must have been the first time ever!
(I have restarted writing this after a month's break, just being busy with stuff. So the memory fades ...)
The next part of my trip was eventful. The flights were from San Antonio to DC and then to La Guardia. As I boarded at DC, I thought that something was amiss. Wracking my brains for a few minutes, I realized that I had left my suit bag at the Starbucks in SA airport! 2 jackets and 2 ties in it. I am almost more upset at losing the ties ... I can't think what to do, so all I do is email Lois and Smita to tell them what happened. Then I fall into conversation with the person sitting next to me. He turns out to be a cop in Central Park, as well as a hobby-ist jazz musician. We spend a very enjoyable hour talking of all kinds of things: we both know at some level of consciousness that we will never meet again, or remember the things we talked about.
Three days at work in Darien and New York, and I am headed home in time to see the World Cup Final. India v. Sri Lanka. Would be fun.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
An evening in Zurich
"I think we may be the only Indians there tonight", I said as we got towards the end of the A3 to Zurich.
The wife works for a legal firm, and is always game for a debate; so she immediately responded saying "you think Credit Suisse has no other Indian clients?"
"I think there will be no other high net worth Indian clients that will be invited tonight."
"How do you know? How can you say that?"
"I must be wrong. I am sure there will be many others. Let's see if we know anyone." I give up easily. This discussion would not result in anything useful.
CS had done a good job in organizing this event. The Park Hyatt parking lot had been closed off except for invitees. We were forced to walk into the hotel through the front entrance (where a carpet had been laid) so that somebody could stop us and take an "official" photo. The lobby, bar and restaurant seemed to have been closed off to the general public and reserved for the Roger Federer charity event. That's where we checked in at about 6:15 PM on Monday the 20th of December, 2010.
It was already pretty crowded. Through the grapevine (read Edy) we had heard that there would be about 350 people invited. The objective was to collect money for Roger's charity for children in Africa. It seemed that many of the 350 were there already. People were milling about, imbibing from an impressive list of drinks. On the whole, the food and drink selection was very impressive as well. And did I mention the service staff? They were absolutely brilliant and impeccable. First Class.
Roger made an appearance about 7 PM and stayed there until about 11. He was charm personified. He mixed with everyone, fielded all kinds of questions, posed for photos, signed a thousand or more autographs. An amazing person. You can argue that it was a high end charity event for him, so he could not afford to be otherwise; but he smiled and was in good humor for all 4 hours. Could tennis or Switzerland wish for a better ambassador? If you did not love him so far, this evening would swing you fully into his camp.
Avid followers of mine on Facebook have already seen our pictures of this event, but the crowning glory was his contribution to Kiran who would have given her life to be there. He signed the invitation with a personalization for her after we told him that she had met him in Rotterdam in 2003, and the he agreed to speak to her by phone a couple of hours later. And to crown it all, he remembered and mentioned the meeting in Rotterdam. I think she fainted after he hung up.
Hats off Roger. We loved meeting you and will be your fans forever.
The wife works for a legal firm, and is always game for a debate; so she immediately responded saying "you think Credit Suisse has no other Indian clients?"
"I think there will be no other high net worth Indian clients that will be invited tonight."
"How do you know? How can you say that?"
"I must be wrong. I am sure there will be many others. Let's see if we know anyone." I give up easily. This discussion would not result in anything useful.
CS had done a good job in organizing this event. The Park Hyatt parking lot had been closed off except for invitees. We were forced to walk into the hotel through the front entrance (where a carpet had been laid) so that somebody could stop us and take an "official" photo. The lobby, bar and restaurant seemed to have been closed off to the general public and reserved for the Roger Federer charity event. That's where we checked in at about 6:15 PM on Monday the 20th of December, 2010.
It was already pretty crowded. Through the grapevine (read Edy) we had heard that there would be about 350 people invited. The objective was to collect money for Roger's charity for children in Africa. It seemed that many of the 350 were there already. People were milling about, imbibing from an impressive list of drinks. On the whole, the food and drink selection was very impressive as well. And did I mention the service staff? They were absolutely brilliant and impeccable. First Class.
Roger made an appearance about 7 PM and stayed there until about 11. He was charm personified. He mixed with everyone, fielded all kinds of questions, posed for photos, signed a thousand or more autographs. An amazing person. You can argue that it was a high end charity event for him, so he could not afford to be otherwise; but he smiled and was in good humor for all 4 hours. Could tennis or Switzerland wish for a better ambassador? If you did not love him so far, this evening would swing you fully into his camp.
Avid followers of mine on Facebook have already seen our pictures of this event, but the crowning glory was his contribution to Kiran who would have given her life to be there. He signed the invitation with a personalization for her after we told him that she had met him in Rotterdam in 2003, and the he agreed to speak to her by phone a couple of hours later. And to crown it all, he remembered and mentioned the meeting in Rotterdam. I think she fainted after he hung up.
Hats off Roger. We loved meeting you and will be your fans forever.
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