Monday 2 February 2009

What would have been different in India?

Adventurous Journey to Office - 2nd Feb 2009


Thursday, 29 Jan 2009.. Weather warning on BBC - 'Heavy Snowfall expected on Monday'. But wait!! heavy is a relative term.. For Indians, 2 inch of snow could be heavy and for Canadians even 2 ft is not much. Nobody expected that it could be the latter in London (a city which has harldy seen any snow in past many years). As I write this blog, the London city is on standstill. All kind of transport systems are jammed. Airport runways are blocked. Many Office's Networks are not down and much more. Before I summarize everything, let me walk you along with me to to my office today..


Last night was beautiful. From my bedroom window I could see snow falling like cotton ... I had a glimpse of snow yesterday evening (Yes, after seeing the situation today, what I saw yesterday, was just a taste of snow).. Everything is sooo white, as if a notorious child has spilled the full white color bottle over the painting. Or a thick layer of white froth is enjoying sound sleep on the fresh greenery. Every tree has changed its color overnight, dull branches have turned into brown and white patches with white leaves protruding out of them. Someone has brushed all the cars into a same color, moulded them into same shape.. Wow!! isn't is beautiful?? But, wait!! White is not always peaceful :)



As I step out of my apartment, this is what welcomes me... At least a foot of snow and I need to make my own way into this virgin land of snow.










Someone rightly said that what you like in someone else is what you personally do not have.. And that leads you to fall in love with other person... My tough black shining leather shoes fell in love with soft lump white snow. As my shoes started kissing all over the snow, I started loosing my control. BOOM BOOM !! Result of their love was felt by my bum :) Don't laugh!! After all, a man learns from his mistakes. And my lesson was to reduce my walking speed drastically.


Walk to the office was an experience of its own today. Instead of plethora of shoulders rubbing each other, I could only found a handful of people and that too taking pictures as they stumble in this slippery snow. This gave me courage to ask someone - could you 'please' take my picture (you need to add 'Please' and 'Thank you' in every sentence in Britain). In a normal working day, if you would ask someone to take a picture while walking at 9AM in Canary wharf area , all you would get is - a dirty look and if it is your lucky day you would be blessed with scowl ;)

As soon as I entered into the office, I had to remove several layering's off my body to search for the I-Card. Oh my God!! don't tell me that I forgot my ID card :( I am not even sure if someone would be there to get me a temporary one. This reminds me of my mom's endless complain about my habit forgetting things at home. My good luck, I found it :)

Well the biggest surprise came here.. To understand this better, let me tell you that our office building has 4 group of lifts and my floor is 41st which comes under the lift group of { 34 to 42 }. No electricity to push this set of lifts up today. So either I need to catch fireman's lift which, most probably, will stop on every floor until level 41 or climb up 7 floors by stairs after reaching on Level 34. I decided on the second option (after several arguments with my mind and on the condition that I will not go to gym today:) ).




Finally, my floor is in front of my eyes. Wait, where are others in the department? Is there another town hall meeting from one of our MDs? But still!! usually there are few who manage to bunk it :) All I found on my floor was 4 employees. Well, 'Different People Different Views' and for me this means Independence :) Instead of rushing for a meeting, I am taking pictures of the spectacular view from level 41. Under normal circumstances, booking a meeting room on level 41 is tougher than booking a date with Paris Hilton, but it is all EMPTY today!! Hurray!! I can go and capture some of those mind boggling views.



When I logged on into my computer, I realised that no one could work from home today. A snowfall, which is heaviest in last 20 years in London, has brought all Citrix and Office laptop networks down. On some floors, even central heating is not working. For me this translates into a blessing in disguise ;) I finished my work early and ran back to home by 3 PM. But on my way to the apartment, jealousy started flowing inside me.. Why? See this :



This is what my neighbours were doing while they were away from office :(((







I had my turn as well and made a snowman !! Yes, A BIG SNOWMAN :)(




Never imagined that this possible in a most developed nation of this world. I thought, "What would have been different in India?" At max, Indian weather department would have predicted a CLEAR sky with LOTS of sunshine ;) But end of the day, result would have been the same. CHAOS !! A BIG CHAOS!!

East or west, India is the best ;)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did you manage to keep this talent hidden from me??? Nice blog entry man! I especially liked the comparisons (Eg: Everything is sooo white, as if a notorious child has spilled the full white color bottle over the painting. Or a thick layer of white froth is enjoying sound sleep on the fresh greenery.) you have made.

Balaji said...

nice read man... me too made an attempt to blog once... but didnt come handy and then i realized im so lazy to write a paragraph :)

Poppy said...

Just today I thought of scraping u in orkut............ I ve scrapped u once...... Yeah . Poppy Aunty from Thrissur. Then I changed my mind 2 visit ur blog............ Really nice decision I took doing which I cud ve deprived myself of reading ur poetic way of expressing bout ur 1st day to office.......... May God Bless u.....Wishing u A verHappy New Year. MAY gOD bLESS U WITH ALL GOODNESS IN LIFE.........

I AM UR FAN, FOLLOWER WHAT NOT i CAN SAY. I see u as a typical responsible n practical youth whom are most needed for our nation.

But at tha same time you too get compliants from ur mom ........... A typical son.....