My first bike accident and the amazing Walmart

This was a pretty eventful day. Right from my Puneri maaj to American customer service, today I went through everything. The beginning was not that great. Generally I bike up to my shuttle stop where I board the shuttle to Tesla. I was at an intersection traffic light in my left lane. The light went green and I raced my bike to turn left. A car, directly in front, facing me, was in her left lane supposed to turn to her left. I don’t know what the driver was thinking he started taking a wrong right turn.

Seeing me he stopped in between. But… I kept looking at him, my eyes fixed on him, and giving all Puneri khunnas I had in me! :D My expressions were clear enough that I didn’t have to utter any word. The next thing I saw when I turned my head was the curb that I was going to hit! I slammed my brakes hard, my rear wheel skid through a 90 deg rotation and it had a rough interaction with the curb. The brakes were awesome and I came to a dead stop within seconds. Realizing I was completely in an awesome condition, I forced my bike pedal to cruise ahead, but it refused to go. Curious, I looked at my rear wheel and it was totally warped and distorted, like a circular rim of metal heated in a furnace!!!!

I couldn’t go home as I would then miss my last shuttle, and the stop was still far enough to drag the bike there and reach in time. I had no option but to opt for the second choice. Lifting my rear wheel dragging the bike all way along and cursing myself for the unnecessary khunnas I gave to him, I finally made to the stop just in time! All the way to Tesla I was thinking what should be done next! At Tesla, I was a star attraction and I had to narrate the story at least 4 to 5 times before I reached the lab

During the day I called some bike shops to check if there was any possibility to straighten the wheel. They suggested me to bring the bike to the shop to inspect. In case it was not possible to straighten (which I think was the case!) it was going to cost me about $70 to fix it. Instead I would as well get a new bike!!

So, without having any hope, I thought of calling Walmart to see if they can help me out (I had got my bike from Walmart). I had heard about Walmart’s return policy, but it was all fantasy to me until I experienced it. My bike was just 3 weeks old and hence I called Walmart for replacement. My shuttle driver was kind enough to give me a ride to Walmart in the evening. There I asked them if I can get a new wheel. Looking at the bikes condition (everything being in awesome condition except a really screwed rear wheel) the manager asked the sports section to see if it can be fixed. The answer was no.

Supposedly, you cannot replace items that you order online from Walmart, so the manager herself suggested me to return the bike for a full refund. I was awestruck! “What.. that means I would get a full refund??” I asked her three times to double check if what I was hearing was correct. “Yes, absolutely”, she said, “one can return anything for a full refund until it’s within the return policy guideline period”.

Apparently, there were many customers in the “return items” line at Walmart. Come to think of it, has this policy made Walmart grow? No wonder Walmart is leading everyone with its annual turnover of $421.849 billion! Being in retailing sector, customer service and customer satisfaction are kept on highest priority. This may be the reason why despite of giving full refunds on so many products still they make huge profits.

I was amazed. It kept me thinking. The very night I ordered the same bike, obviously from Walmart.

The People of America!

It was a great experience to travel more than 8000 miles in 15 days covering the entire east coast and southern America. Starting from Chicago the adventure included NYC, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Rhodes Island, Niagara, 1000 Island (1840 to be precise!), Virginia, Tennessee and then Florida! During these days I got a chance to interact with all kinds of people, from different backgrounds, different ethnicities and different cultures.

Although America looks the same everywhere with freeways going either N-S or E-W, fast food restaurants wherever you see, smiling people greeting “hello, how are you doing!” just to acknowledge your presence, STOP signs everywhere, Jogging people at odd times of the day or dancing on the rhythm of the music plugged into their ears…. There are different shades to them if one looks closer!

Unlike people in and around 42^nd Street 7^th Avenue NYC (Times Square) who are “upscale” neatly dressed with suit and tie and polished shoes, rushing to their office places in the morning time or sitting on some 83^rd floor in a glass cabin with a mac in front of them and a personal secretary (lady) on their right… the countryside men and completely laid back… Chillaxed!! :P Its simple.. nothing as Grandeur or glittering as you will see on the east coast or silicon valley.

By countryside I mean the people I observed in Virginia, Tennessee provinces. These are the people who tame horses, pigs and cattle, wear hats and 6 pocket jeans, have acres and acres of farm lands and probably a gun. I will call them close to cowboys! These people seem to be more attached to the family. Wherever I went I observed entire family.. a married couple, the in laws and the children.. together (living happily).

Great people with great hospitality! I happened to visit one of their shows (The Dixie Stampede Dining Show) where they portrayed their “cattle skills”, narrated the development

of the race around Tennessee State and enacted the war that took place between the North and South Tennessee. The show was jaw dropping and to add to the flavor the dinner was mind-blowing. We were served one FULL roasted hen!! Along with vegetable soup, boiled corn, slice of pork, a potato and then desert… with NO silverware!! Great experience to eat a full roasted chicken with hands! J The show concluded with countryside music and people dancing happily.

Chinatown is one more shade. Not only people, but everything is in Chinese.. shop names, billboards, prices everything. Its a totally different world when one enters the Chinatown. The buildings have stairs on the outside..The lodges are disgusting with common toilets, there is garbage on the streets.. and also the following sign can be seen in Chinatown NYC.

Florida was all together a different story. Orlando is full of children, tourists.. Thanks Walt! I hardly saw any “Americans” as I descended to south. The Orlando-Miami journey gave a flavor of our good old ST bus (rest is now self explanatory! which includes the driver, passengers, bus, lay over restaurants etc…!). Miami is full of people either from Cuba or Mexico.. I don’t know how to differentiate.. but my point is.. Here I met natives who can’t speak English. Inner parts of Miami had more old people busy in their diurnal activities.. Similar kind of people like you can see when you travel from Panjim to Vasco in the morning. Miami reminded me of Goa except the tourists.. tourists are more “bold” here!! :P

That was my journey.. Next is the west coast… which is one more different flavor of the America… the “Desi America”!!

India v/s Pakistan

(Clarification based on a response: The "cheering against the two teams" was in good spirit as all the people knew each other. It was not due to the animosity but for teasing the opponents! It was not taken srsly by any team)

No doubt it had to be the most nail biting match of World cup 2011, it was also a lifetime experience for me. India v/s Pakistan: it is always thrilling, full of tension, fervor, and enthusiasm.. “Get used to it!” But you just cannot describe the feeling when you are watching the match with a bunch of Pakistanis in the same room.

The match was going to be screened live at central campus. We first headed the library and printed out some “4”s and “6”s placards to show the Pakistanis who would be present in the hall. Everyone was ready to head to central campus and we shared a cab to go there. The venue was already packed. With lots and lots of Indians, the Pakistanis were still seen prominently seen with their green jersey’s and painted flags on their faces. We sneaked inside the room and squeezed onto a table to rest our seats.

The room (which had a capacity of 70) was packed with around 300 people. Noises, cheers, slogans everything was heard except the commentary. Every ball had to be cheered.. either by the blue guys or by the green. We clearly outnumbered the opponents. “Sachiiiiiin sachin..” “jitega bhai jitega.. india jitega.. harega bhai harega Pakistan harega” was shouted on the faces of the Pakistanis but at the same time pin drop silence was seen when Wahab struck Yuvraj and Dhoni bored the audience with his front foot defenses. There was some exchange of uncensored words which ignited the pak ego, but it was nothing more than a blip on the radar!

A blasting inning by Sehwag reminded me the 2003 India-Pak match and watching Shoaib sitting in the pavilion really made me say.. “soch raha hoga.. chalo bach gaya!” The Indian inning was full of enthusiasm and slowly the night outers went for a short nap during the second half. The room was again full during the last few overs and the catch of Misbah sent everyone yelling and cheering loudly. On the other hand the opponents were quietly sneaking out from the room lowering there heads with all sorts of emotions. The celebration followed by “Chakh de”, group photographs and then the presentation ceremony.

It was an awesome experience!!

I have your Eclipse secured!!

Being an Automotive guy, being 20 miles away from Detroit and not going to the North American Auto show would the the dumbest thing on earth that i could ever think of! Everything was planned and me, Prasad with three other gals, Krutikka, Avani and Sofia decided to drive down to Detroit in Prasad's Coupe. Coupe is basically a two door 4 seater car where the people sitting on rear seats have to sneak in through a minute gap between the front seat and B pillar... Design doesn't make sense but the car looks sexy!

So after lunch we drove down to Detroit. GPS is a necessity while driving on US roads (There is no one on the road to ask for the way.. if you take a wrong turn.. so following the GPS lady is the most wise thing you can do!! ). We fixed the GPS holder on the windshield put the GPS into it, typed in the destination and got going. At the destination crowd was huge (in American sense.. don't compare it with crowd in Dadar Kurla local!!). We did not get space to park the car in closed parking (Mistake 1.. lack of patience shown in waiting for parking space.. ob.. we are mechites.. cute cars were waiting for us!!). We drove down a couple of miles form the destination and got a parking space on the road (anologous to P1, P2 in India) where we parked (Mistake 2!!.. never park on open roads in Detroit!). We were in a hurry, all excited, and made our third and final mistake.. took the GPS out, kept it in the glove box.. but forgot the holder on the windshield itself. (Mistake 3!!)

The exhibition was interesting, but what happened after that was more exciting. It was 6pm, pitch dark outside and chilling cold. After seeing all the models, satisfied and excited about the progress made by the auto industry, we started walking towards our car. Prasad and Sofia went ahead while me, Avani and Krutikka were a bit behind. It was foggy and we could only see the blinking headlights of the coupe. I was wondering why Prasad was not bringing the car ahead and picking us up rather than waiting at the parking spot for us to arrive. We din't know something was waiting for us there!!

As we reached I realised.. it was worse than I had thought. Up till now I had only heard "When you go to Detroit you HAVE to get mugged, not CAN or May Be.. but HAVE TO!!" Today I experienced it. The front window was shattered and our GPS and MP3 Player was gone!! And there was a note on the wind shield with a name and number on it. It said..

"I have your Eclipse secured"

We had no clue what it meant and we called on that number. A voice replied that he was a cop and was waiting for us at the spot. He has our MP3 player and called us at a lodge on M10 highway from where he would direct us to the police station. We decided that I and Prasad would head to him while the gals should take a taxi and go home. But as we reasiled that the taxi would charge $150 from Detroit to Ann Arbor it was a chorus.. GM!! chup chap peeche baitho!! :P

As Prasad was ready to head to that place, a second thought came to my mind.. what if he is not a cop and what if he wants to mug us?? Its risky! I proposed calling 911. Poora filmy hai na.. mein bhi waisa hi soch raha tha when Prasad was calling 911. Things got more interesting. We mentioned about the note to the police and even they had no clue what it meant nor they knew the name of the person mentioned. Further 911 told that there is no lodge or police station on M10!!! Now it was but natural to call them at the spot for investigation but we hardly had any clue where we were and hence we called them near the Auto Show building.

In the mean time that "eclipse"guy called thrice. Maine kaha.. koi cop itna to free aur concerned nahi hoga ki teen teen baar phone karega!! (Indian Mentality.. kya karu!) So we concluded that he is not a cop and started avoiding his phone.

We waited for long before the cops arrived. I got down the car so that they would notice me when Prasad made me realise that getting out of the car on the crime scene is not advised. They can straight away shoot me!! kya country hai bhai!! Exaclty as shown in movies they came sneeking from behind, ensuring we were not armored. After taking their permission, we two stepped out.

I handed the note to the cops. They had a look at it with fullest suspicion.. and to make it worse the saw blood stains on it!! They asked whose blood was it, I was speechless!! Bhai muze koi idea nahi tha!! Itne me Prasad came there and told them that it was his blood as he had cut himself while cleaning the broken glass. Furiously the reciprocated "Do you have any clue what it means to give a blood stained chit into a cop's hand!!!" Hamari to poori phat gayi thi.. Pahile se itne problems n now the cops are firing us!! WTF!!.

We apologised. They investigated, registered a report and told us to follow them. I thought there would be some formalities that are needed to be done at the police station untill I realised that we had reached an accident scene. Ab ye kya naya panga!! A cop got out of a car and approached us.... We were quietly staring at him as he was walking towards us. He came and.... handed me our MP3 Player!! Dude.. I realised.. this is not India bhai!! Cops are actually so much caring!! Before I got a chance to thank him he disappeared at the crime scene!!!! I was looking at the MP3 Player in my hands and then suddenly saw the words "Eclipse" carved on it!! It was its make!! :D :D

All of us laughed. We finally decoded what did that note meant! Driving back home on a highway at a speed of 70 miles/hr, with a window broken and -15 deg centigrade outside was in itself a different experience!

And above all that we were fortunate that the cops didn't realise that we were 5 ppl in a 4 seater car!!

Night Trek and Cave Exploration @ Antargange

A fortnight from now our PS is going to end. Our enjoyment observed no bounds. Along with trips to places like Hogenakkal and Mysore we were used to movies, parties, treats and get-togethers atleast once every week where veg people turned nonveg (courtesy to our great connosouir of food-- Mayank) and people like me experienced the taste of sea monsters like octopus, squids and crabs for the first time in life.

This weekend we wanted to do something different, unusual, something adventurous. And it was me who proposed an idea of a night trek and cave exploration to Antargange. Adventures started from the planning stage only. First it was a big NO (as most of them hadn't experienced it before), but the enthu of gals and my description of a night trek made the guys to reconsider their opinion. Suyash called six of his friends and Latchumi called 4 of hers.. and now we had a big group of 15 people with two big disjoint sets where most of them din't know people from the other set. Me Kvk and Mayank were the common people, from which Kvk happened to "conveniently" slip and hurt his leg..saale ne lite le liya, leaving two of us. After a verry

loong discussion of whether we should actually go or not, some had a lot of enthu as 'now' it was a prestige issue for them (they had told their friends) :) ..we finally decided to go for it. Booking a cab had also adventures involved in it.. which are to be censored due to personal requests by some :). Finally we settled on booking an 18 seater van. We hired a guide named Raghu from the Bangalore Mountaineering Club and embarked our journey at 10 pm.

Everyone got acquainted with each other, thanks to DumbC. We realised that it was an awesome group with varied characteristics, all just getting mixed up with each other so easily. DJ suggested Tejaswini's dialogues to be broadcasted on All India Radio for public entertainment. (Now you would get a hang of the characters in our group). We reached the base camp at around 11:30 where we had a formal intro with each other and with Raghu. We climbed stairs till we reached a Mandir, where there is a source of pure water, whose origin is still unknown, thats why the place is named Antargange (unknown source of water)

We started the trek. Aman, as usual, was the most adventurous guy in the group, and urged people to switch off their torches. Moon was not seen and I scared off Vaishnavi saying that it was 'amavas ki raat!!'. She din't realise that there are these things called clouds that can hide the moon. But no worries.. Suyash was their to help her at every step ;) (i don kno who will help ME after Vaishnavi reads this!!). Despite of Mayank's cursing ("Bhad me jao salo, muze vapis sahi salamat jaana hai, mai torch laga raha hu!!) we succeeded in keeping most of the torches off and slowly everyone got acquainted to the natural light. There were millions of stars above

where Mayank kept on searchin Orion, which I think is the only constellation he knows :). After a trail in woods for an hour we reached the top, where we saw Hyder Ali's dargah.

The adventure was yet to begin. Now we had these two verry huge, collosal rocks in front of us. The road was blocked. We thought we lost the way, untill when Raghu made us realise that we were at the mouth of nature made caves at Anterganga..n this was the only way in. We stared at each other.. Impossible, we just can't go through this. The was a 20cm gap between those two rocks from which we had to squeeze in sideways. Raghu took the lead and he was followed by each of us, one by one, slowly. Fortunately, no other creature like lizard, cockroach or snake came in between.. warna to maza aa jata.. hilne ki bhi jagah nahi thi!!.

It was just the starting. We went deeper and deeper, into the crevices. One by one we were sliding, crawling and squeezing through. N this was not once or twice, but at nearly at all the places we had to adopt the same strategy. Raghu was guiding each of us, telling us where to keep our feet, how to grip the rock firmly and pass through the openin

g. While I was being hit by people (ye koi time hai saale.. chup kar!!) as I was singing.. "right leg aage aage, left leg peeche peeche' from Rab ne.. There were instances where we had to take hold of a hanging root of a creeper and cross a rock. We usually passed our bags first and then tried to pass ourselves. We then waited in the place created by rocks, for other to come, and if the place was exposed to sky, Mayank looked for his Orion. 

It was 3:45 am. We finally came out of the caves. We all sat on the top of a big rock. Break time, all were hungry. We prepared a special recipie of Alu Bhujiya sandwitch which was a big hit. Played some songs on the cell phone, relaxed for sometime with Mayank still searching for his Orion. We started again at 4:30. Ladkion ki awaje ayi.. "fir se wahi rasta nahi hai na!!!!! :D.. Jayashree seemed to be just exhausted, but regained her enthu with the philosophical but energetic words from Shantanu.:) Only I experienced this as others were busy jumping from one rock to other, to skip a deep, dangerous ravine in between. Without the Rock Climber Raghu, the trek was just impossible.

The sky was beginning to light up. We left the caves and started descending the mountain. This was simple. At the break of dawn, we reached our base camp, the Mandir. I was the first one to

reach followed by Arpit and Shantanu. Hang on, it was still not complete. We were relaxing on the stairs for the others to come. But before that we were attacked by "the others".. Monkeys!!!.. Stealthily they approached us from all the sides and from the trees. For me this was the most scary moment in the whole trek. Meri to phat gayi thi. One of them, a big one, was just behind Arpit's bag. Before they actually took away our bags and scratched our faces, we had to

make a move. We stood up and just started running.... After this "Majja Run \m /" when we realised that none of them were follow ing us, we searched a place to sit, and waited for people to come. Everyone arrived withing few minutes.. we had a group snap and started our journey home!! This is the best trek I have ever experienced!!

A Nature Trail...

The mini traveler was parked at Domlur stand with me and Mayank waiting for others to arrive. They were happily having coffee at Shiv Sagar when our call made them realize that we were getting late. It was 6:30 in the morning, and Bitsians @ Merc had planned a trip to Hogenakkal Falls. Within 5 min, Alekh made an appearance from the backside of the traveler. A dog also followed him :). We reached a consensus of picking up ‘the others’ at Shivsagar rather than waiting at Domlur. Within no time we reached the hotel, and there they were- Vivek, Chaitanya, Latchumi and Vaishnavi, eagerly waiting for us to come. The next halt was at Oasis Mall where Suyash, Gursheen and Aman joined us making the Team BITS complete—embarking our journey to Hoganakkal with full enthusiasm.

Hoganakkal, located in Tamilnadu 180 Km from Bangalore, is a serene place with Cauveri finding its way from within the gorges and canyons. Being in TamilNadu, the gals were in full enthu and were constantly reminding us of that ‘Arch’ which marked the end of Karnataka and beginning of ‘Their Territory’. The van stopped at the border to pay the inter-state tax and the gals stepped out with a feeling—“A small step by man, one giant leap by mankind”. We all followed—this was our first step on TN soil.

The travel agency had coated a tax of 1500. We soon realized that the tax was 1000 and hence called the driver’s boss….
Aman—Hello, bhaiiya.. aapne 1500 bola tha, yahan to tax 1000 hai. Hum 1000 de rahe hai
Boss – Aap aisa nahi kar sakte, aapne pahile hi bola tha jitna coat kiya hai utna thik hai
Aman—Arre lekin kal hi hamare dost jaa ke aye, unhone 1000 diye.. aap 1500 kaise maang sakte ho??
Boss—Aap “North wale” hamesha aise hi karte ho.. hume bhi business karna hai.. (LOL)
Aman—Bhad me jao.. tax 1000 hai, hum 1500 nahi bharenge...... n he hung the call.

We paid Rs 1000 and the traveler’s ignition key was turned. The route to Hogenakkal Falls is scenic, with lush mulberry fields and giant terracotta guardian deities, as you approach it, the roar of the Cauvery and the abundance of vegetation in the area is sure to catch your attention. Along with this non-stop DumbC going on with ‘not so dumb’ ppl and Suyash’s periodical ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ made the four hour journey very pleasant and enjoyable. After paying couple of more toll taxes (ye tamil log bahut kamate hai) we reached our destination- Hoganakkal.

The main attraction were the Coracles- the bowl shaped boats which took people on a ride in the Cauvery. We had to bargain a lot for the boat ride, with people who din’t understand any Hindi, and here the gals played a very important role of interpreting… we now realized that we had entered “Their Teritory”. The deal was not bad with us getting into two Coracles, 5 ppl in each, paying them 230 per person for the whole day.

The Coracle took us from one rock to other, the boatman steering it so skillfully that we all enjoyed the water showers coming down from the rocks. Me and Gursheen, the only two people having cameras were in different boats, my boat being ahead of them. The result—Under a shower, they took our pics, but on their turn—we said “Bhad me jao :D :D” Soon this mechanical topper (Gursheen) seemed to have realized it and he stopped clicking out photos. Thus we had to snap some of theirs until he resumed. :)

After some time of sailing we sighted an island. The island was surrounded with mountains. We decided to have lunch in the mountain canopies and climbed to reach a suitable place where we would get shade. We realized that we had left Latchumi, Aman and Suyash behind and asked Vivek to look for there whereabouts. Vivek ek tapu pe jaa ke khada hua—n he located them—playing in water. Restless Vivek kept on shouting “Abe aa bhi jao.. ” but it was of no use. :( They took their time but finally arrived in the thick shade which Mayank and Chaitanya had explored—ideal place to have lunch. But in no time we realized that we had forgotten half of our lunch and plates in the boat.. and our ‘jungle lunch’ plan remained a dream. Instead we had a trail in the forest and then returned back to the boat.

The Coracle steered its way through the river and took us to a beautiful waterfall where all of we enjoyed playing in water. Vivek enjoyed the LIVE sight of Mayank’s specs getting carried away by the turbulent streamlines.

Exhausted after playing in water, we started our return journey. We got seated in our van. Half of them fell asleep within seconds. Mayank’s light background singing and Suyash’s periodical (now toned down) ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ made the return journey also pleasant.

P.S. Some Interesting Post-hang-overs of the trip:
Mayank: Lost in No Man’s Land till he wore his extra pair of specs.
Vivek: Got up at 5 and came to office by 6:30 am …. (Uske alava wo code kisiko run karna nahi ata.. isliye ana pada :) )
Suyash: Dashed upon a tree while walking to office.. (Who paani me thoda uncomfortable ho jaata hu!!!)