Mile high with an Indian!

Fatigued I was when I walked up to board the plane.  

As with life itself, when everything goes well, then the experiences are not tiring.  But when it is glitch after glitch, especially when it is not our fault, then life is a drag. A pain. We want to punch somebody in the face to get rid of our frustrations.

No, I did not punch any airline personnel; easy there, dear reader! ;)

In fact, a stranger, after listening to my response to what I was doing in Denver, commented "after all that, you seem to be taking it all well."  I took that as a wonderful compliment.  Whether it is an awful experience when flying or in life, well,  keep calm and carry on, right?

I dragged myself into the plane.  The stewardess wished each one of us as we passed her with a big gap-toothed smile.  There was something different, something familiar about her.  Could she be?  Could it possibly be?  I mean, the answer to this question from a few months ago?

I didn't want to ask her that right away.  For one, I was a tad anxious that the plane might not take off because of some technical glitch and that I will be stranded in Denver for a lot more days.  Also, I thought it would be rude to ask her that as I passed her.

I reached my seat by the window.  I buckled up.  I hoped that I would finally reach home.

The beverage cart rolled by and there she was in the aisle.  She asked the passenger in the aisle seat if he wanted anything to drink.  "Black coffee" he said.

His son was in the middle seat.  Perhaps about nine years old.  "May I have some orange juice, please?" the kid asked so politely.  I was impressed.

Now my turn.

She mumbled something to me.  I thought it was my darn hearing that was playing up when I could not understand what she said.  She repeated that mumble.  And then perhaps seeing my puzzled and confused expression, she asked me in English.  I had not understood her because initially she didn't ask me the question in English!

As she handed me my gin and tonic ... nah, you know by now I don't care for that--it is always a smooth bourbon.  Ok, ok, it was cranapple juice; happy now?  

Anyway, as she handed me the juice, she asked "you are from India, right?"

I nodded a yes.

"Which part?"

"From the southern part. From Chennai."

"Vanakkam" she said with her gap-toothed smile.  "I am from Andhra Pradesh.  Well, my father is from there and I spent some years in Delhi. So, I know a little bit of Telugu and Hindi."

So, I was right after all.  The cosmos finally answered my question.  The cosmos cares about me.  Yay!

She continued down the aisle.  

I was re-energized.

How do you get through a cauliflower? Via a wormhole!

When visiting India a couple of years ago, an old high school friend offered an advice/warning: "avoid eating raw carrots because of reports of tapeworms."

Of course, I did not pay attention to the advice; when have I ever listened to anybody telling me what to do! ;)  I kept devouring the carrot-tomato-onion-cilantro salad that my mother made practically every other day for me.

Now, with mother not her old self, I did a lot more household work than I usually do when visiting with the folks.  One morning, I sat down at the table with a cutting board, a knife, and a large cauliflower head.  A couple of cuts later, I jumped out of the chair freaked out by the sight of a large green worm.  My father calmly walked over, guided the worm on to a cauliflower leaf, and took that out to the trash.

I got back to the chair and continued from where I left off.  Now, I was intensely cautious.  I didn't want to surprised with any more worms.  I was ready for them.  If there was one, surely there could be more.

And there were.

I jumped out of the chair.  No, not because I was freaked out.  But to grab my camera.  After all, I knew then that this had to be blogged.  I suppose there is that writer in me sensing that opportunity to write about.  I am reminded of Roz Chast's comment that having a writer in the family is danger to the rest because sooner or later they will feature in the writings, and not always flatteringly ;)

So, I rushed to grab the camera, and hoping meanwhile that the worms--yes, more than one--hadn't crawled away.  They were there, alright, as if waiting to strike a pose!

After clicking, I slowly removed the worms and tossed them away--didn't have to wait for father to do it.

In all these years of cooking cauliflower in the US, never have I seen worms.  Dipping raw cauliflower pieces in hummus, or a dressing, before munching on them, I have never ever seen a worm.

"This is why we first soak the cauliflower in warm water and a little bit of salt" was the typical response from the women who were all too familiar with worms in such veggies.  To them, it was not worth even talking about.  It was like making a big deal out of the sun rising in the east.  Not for me though.

When young, every once in a while we would find a small worm in the cooked rice.  Yes, a dead worm--about the size of the rice grain itself, which is a good camouflage effect--in the cooked rice.  Which would freak the life out of us kids.  My grandmothers always calmly said, "keep that to the side and continue eating."  Easier said than done!

I suppose this is one downside of eating "organic"--something that I am not fixated on.  The cauliflower that I buy here is not anything that is certified organic, which means that there is always a fair chance that chemicals had been used to prevent the worm eggs in the first place.  Thanks to those chemicals, the worms and I live in different worlds, and I am happy to keep them away ;)

For want of a nail ... a plane-load of people were stranded!

Remember that old elementary school rhyme on the want of a horseshoe nail?

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

You forgot, eh!  What a shame!!! ;)

It is not to be taken literally that a kingdom was lost only because of one small little horseshoe nail. It is a metaphor at various levels, primarily on the cause and effect--which this blogger loves exploring--and is a rhyme variation of that other old idea that the strength of a chain depends on its weakest link.

I had plenty of time to think about that after I was stranded, again, in Denver.

Here's how the story developed: the aircraft arrived earlier than scheduled--we could see it through the glass.  I was looking forward to reaching home by midnight.  After a long, long flight and after a lengthy absence from my sweet home by the river--the Riverhouse, as the friend calls it.

It got to boarding time.  The person at the counter was working the phone and not announcing the boarding.

And then came the announcement at 9:40: flight canceled.

It was not a technical malfunction.  The aircraft was fine.

It was not a pilot issue--they were right there.

The flight was canceled because the cabin attendant did not show up for work.

Yep, no cabin attendant, no go.

Almost right away I then got the automated email from the airlines:

I think the capacity of that plane is sixty or seventy.  It was a full flight, post-holiday, and all of us were now stranded in Denver for the night, and perhaps more.

All was lost for the want of a horseshoe nail :(

We can expect a lot more such events because we now deal with immensely complex systems that can fail any minute depending on the weakest link.  In the digital world, it is possible to build in redundancy and decrease the failure rate to near zero.  But, that is with the data bits of ones and zeros. Building human redundancy, however, is expensive--to hire and have available "spare" replacement personnel.  When running an "efficient" organization, the tendency is not to have too many people as "spare" personnel.  Which means ... incidents similar to what happened in Denver.  

When life goes on really well, we even resort to describing it as "everything worked out like a well-oiled machine."  We have developed such an understanding so much so that we never refer to life going well as "everything worked out like a human."  The temptation is to then replace more and more humans from the commercial and other enterprises and replace them with ones and zeros.

But, here is what we need to remember: an error-proof technological world can be sterile. It can be, well, like a well-oiled machine. A life that is devoid of humanity itself.

I don't want to be in that world.   It is the humanness that makes life all the more exciting and worthwhile.  And painful, like when the attendant did not show up.

I worry that our rush to embrace technology removes, little by little, all those qualities that make the human existence, well, human.

Of course, I cursed the night away that I was stranded in Denver--when pricked, do I not bleed?  But, am glad that we are humans and not automatons. At least, not yet!