New life again

Days are rolling and things are changing. New Year has brought in a new job for me, but far from home. So, now I have become a weekend dad. My new job is at Manchester and I need to travel from home which is London. Since I love travelling by train, I am enjoying my journeys every week.

It is nice experience to travel. The so called Pendolina trains are great. They travel at a maximum speed of 140 mph. You would have heard about a train accident in UK recently. The train involved was Pendolina. In the train accident, only one elderly lady who was above 80 and was in the next compartment to the Engine died. There were few who were injured. None of the windows of the train broke. It was so robustly built. The accident was due to some fault on the track.

I had to travel the very next day after the accident. There were no worries in my mind since I love travelling. I meet lot of people, but hardly few who smile at you. Every week I wanted to write about my experiences. Since I do not carry laptop to my hotels, could not browse from the hotel. The hotel accommodation is good except for the receptionists.

By the way, I had a strange experience when I checked out after my first week. I check out every Friday and get back to the same hotel on Sunday night. During my first weekend, I was shocked to see that I was charged for 14 days ( ie. for 2 weeks instead of 1 week). Luckily I checked my bill, and expressed it to the receptionist. I had to fight hard to explain it to the receptionist. The second bill was produced and again it had errors in it. I checked it and found that I was charged for 7 days where as I had stayed only 5 days. Again, I pointed out to the receptionist, and this time her expressions are left to your imagination. The third bill was there and I paid it, and confirmed twice whether she had booked me for the next week.

Few weeks before I had purchased few DVD’s at discounted price in one of the chain stores in London. I did not check the receipt since it was for fewer pounds and went home. When I was about to destroy the receipt, I just had a look and was shocked to see that the DVD’s were not of the price it was quoted on the shelf and as well as on top of the DVD’s. I retained the bill and went a week later and got the claim back.

Couple of years before, in one of the photo shop, where I normally process my films, I paid for the bill and went back to work. While at work I was shocked to see that I was charged twice the amount for developing a film when I looked at the receipt. The normal procedure here is, when we are told the amount, we place our credit card on the machine, and key in our pin number. Then they give the receipt and we return home. But I realised that we need to check since the error has occurred. What has happened is, somehow the salesman had keyed in a wrong amount, while he said the right amount. Probably it was the amount of the previous receipt which he had in mind or so. Luckily since it was a shop where I go frequently and the salesman remembered my transaction, he refunded the excess amount back to me.

So, however though I learnt that we should check the amount twice, at times it is not practically possible to do so, when the queue is long, or when we need to rush out due to other commitments.

In this electronic world, we cannot take anything for granted and we need to check however twice. Especially the shopping receipts and big bills should be checked spontaneously.

In the same chain stores when I bought a new travel bag I checked twice at the shelf that the suitcase was marked as 7 pounds. When it was brought for billing, the till clerk said it does not have a tag and requested help from his senior. His manager came and went to the shelf and came back with a tag and handed it over to the till. The clerk scanned it, and said that it costs 35 pounds. I was not prepared to pay and objected that it was wrong. He argued that it was brought in by his manager, and she is very experienced, and cannot make mistake. I looked at the tag brought in by his manager, and mentioned that it had a different description about the product than the one I had picked. So, he requested another senior staff to check it again. I requested my son to accompany the staff and show the shelf and the product. This time the staff returned back and said that I was right. There was a huge crowd in the queue waiting with patience.

The clerk was embarrassed, and gave me the correct bill.

I whispered “The boss is not always right” in his ears, while thanking my son for his compliments about me.

Film

Lots of things have been happening around with me personally. Honestly speaking mind was not at ease to blog. Thanks to my fellow bloggers for encouraging me to come back. It was not my intention to be away from blogging. I shall see to that this does not happen frequently. I have been reading everyone’s post but was not able to comment. Since I was taking a break from everything, had a good time watching lots of classic matinees in private television. Do we still have public television is another question. It was memorable to watch wonderful old films. They are a delight to watch with the whole family. While watching few of them I went to those old days.

I started recollecting my memories. As far as I could remember, the first theatre I had watched a movie should be ‘National’ theatre in Tambaram. There was a worker who was dumb and he used to have a round log and use it now and then to bring the crowd under control. He was lovingly called as “Oomai”. He looked as a terror when I was a child. At the same time, I laughed on thinking about this, when I shook hands with him when I was in early 20’s. He was still working in that theatre. I started panicking once when I was struck between crowds in a small lane like ticket counter. I was holding my mother’s hand tight. Probably it was for some picture like “Tirumal Perumai” or some other picture on god’s belief. The first place any boy knows that he has grown is only when he stands in ladies queue and denied entrance. Also, when a boy enters a ladies compartment in the local electric train along with his mother, and the whole crowd keeps grumbling, he realises that he is coming off age. This happened to me too.

More than going to theatres, I have wonderful memories of having seen movies in tents and called as ‘Kottai’. Last week I was seeing some movie, and there was this scene. The whole village crowd runs behind a small vehicle which comes, with new posters that are likely to be shown in their cinema tent. I laughed at it and my children asked the reason. I had to explain the fun we had in running after the man who stuck the posters. It is a great art. After pasting on the wall, he used to apply handful of paste on the poster too. Later I realised that it was for the cattle to taste sour and not eat the poster.

All of us in the street would gather and see the movie in the theatre. I always thought that the actors were behind the screens and they disappear silently after the movie is over. It was a mystery then. The tents were so comfortable. We used to enjoy sitting in the sand and watch movies. When we were young our mothers were on the ladies side. During the intervals they used to pass on the snacks and water for us. We used to carry few small bed sheets to put them on the floor and sit. Many times we used to dig the sand while watching the movie. Some smokers used to put their beedi and bury them inside. So while digging, our hands used to pick them up and throw them. Later our hands also smelt those of beedis. While walking back home, we used to discuss about the characters in the movies. If the film had a sad end, the girls in our street used to have wet eyes, including my sisters.

It was a great experience to go for night shows as we started growing up. Most of the night shows had a MGR movie. There used to be rivalry between villages during second show. It was considered as a risk. But still we enjoyed going with friends. We used to gather the sand like children build castles nowadays in the beach and then sit on top of that to watch films without any hindrance. If there was anyone huge in front of us and hiding us in any way my friends used to grumble “Hey…listen he is sitting on the place where we spat…”. The person on hearing this, used to move away from that place and we would continue watching the movie without hindrance.

I could not understand why the films used to get cut while being shown. There used to be long whistles from the public especially if it was cut during interesting scenes. This was a common enquiry before deciding to watch the film.

“How is the new movie? Are there lots of cuts? Is it good print?” and stuff like that. We never understood the meaning of Eastman colour movie. By the time we realised to understand we grew up.

My Dad used to take me for night shows along with his friends, when I was even less than eight years. I still remember him, standing along with his friends and myself, discussing about the movie after the night show under a huge tree which was believed to be a home for ghosts.

I am glad that those tents which gave us so much of entertainment during our younger days, still exist.

Pic courtesy: Narayanan Venkitu

Hope a Good year

Days have rolled by. Life looks like being on a roller coaster. One more year has been added to everything. Looking back, it is evident that many things have happened to us last year. New illnesses, new problems, new city, new life, new job everything happened. To end up, all of us in our family were severely down with flu. There was a ‘Coughing Chain’ going on in our house during Christmas and New Year holidays. Every minute either one of us were coughing or it was passing on. It was a terrible way to end a year. We all were waiting for December 31. Every one of us has such bad time. Sometimes we wave ‘bye’ sadly to a very good year and welcome the New Year happily. Sometimes we hurriedly wave ‘Good bye’ to the old year, looking forward for the New Year. All of us were hurrying up to say ‘Good bye’ to 2006. My family got influenced with the age old belief of Britain. Just few seconds before the arrival of New Year, people open their back door believing the bad luck of the previous year to go away, and close in time to open the front door to let the good luck of New Year to come in. We waited for those seconds. In fact we allowed extra time for the old year to get out of our house, and just in time opened the Front door to let good luck in. What a superstition! It was fun to do that.

New Year has come to stay with us. I am already seeing some good signs happening. Every New Year I think of this pure soul ‘Mr. Asokan’ whom I met many years before. I was very active in few voluntary organisations especially blood donation. One day, a friend of mine called me up and asked for few units of blood for an open heart surgery in a big hospital. I took few of my friends and donated without any clue about the recipient. I still remember everything that happened. Just before donating, our weight has to be measured and when I stood on the weighing machine the needle did not stop and was just going around and around. Even the serious looking mallu nurse, burst out of laughter. Later they said that the machine was under repair and asked me to use a new one. After completing the donations, we were introduced to a person who happened to be the father of the blood recipient. He conveyed that the patient wanted to see us personally. I went to his bed. Mr.Asokan was lying with so much of worries. His family were at his bed side. His parents, wife and relatives were so much worried. Mr.Asokan shook our hands and thanked us with a smile. He was about to be operated the next day and his family thanked us deep from their heart. Within few days, I heard that the surgery was successful. The following New Year I received a wonderful letter with greetings and Meenakshi temple kumkum prasadham. Mr.Asokan had written a personal letter and thanked me and my friends for donating blood. This became a routine. Every New Year I received a letter along with Meenakshi Amman temple kumkum prasadham. After change of my residence, I am not in touch with him. I do not receive letters any more from him. But every New Year I remember him. I am sure he must be alive hale and healthy. His way of thanking us has not faded away from our memory. I had donated blood to a lot of people, but he remains always special in our memory especially during New Year. I do have few more interesting incidents, related with blood donation which I shall post in the future.

Hope all of you have a wonderful year ahead and keep up your resolutions.

On a nice day, I took this picture of river Thames in London. Every picture taken is unique here.