Fidelity

Hi, I was feeling lonely so thought of writing something. I wanted to write more on things around me. But right now my life is quiet plain and colorless, so I’ll try writing on something else.
I am Shivam. Right now I am outside a house in Darjeeling. How did I reach here? I was traveling from Kolkata to Shillong in a train. I was returning after completing my final year of engineering. I had got placed in Infosys and had to join in a month’s time. I was going back to my parents for a nice vacation. The train had come to halt on one station on the way. There is this beautiful place in between called Darjeeling. The station was on hilltop and close to the station was this amazing valley. I think this is one of the most beautiful places in India. I was seeing stunning hills and miles of tea gardens on them also few ropeway trams crossing between the valleys of all the hills. A small number of dark clouds were passing over the hill tops covering them and few sunrays making a beautiful colorful rainbow over one of the mountains. This beautiful view was just making me feel like passing through a heaven. Bang! Just while I was enjoying this view I heard a loud sound of door. My boogie was not too occupied as I was going to a small place in India called Shillong. Immediately I shifted to the edge of my seat to see what happened. Before I reached the edge I saw one person pass by my seat. He was running and huffing very loud as if he was terrified. Just then I reached the end and peeped out. From the bang to reaching the end of seat would be just a couple of seconds or less. As my head was moving out of the seat edge to see another bang! This time this was a bullet. I couldn’t see the bullet or think of anything more before the bullet hit my head. Bang!!! I don’t think I had that much time to feel the pain. Within a second my body was down lying dead.
After few seconds I saw myself getting up. I woke up and I was taken aback by the fact that I was able to survive even after being hit by a bullet in my head. I touched my forehead; there was no wound or blood. I felt all fine, I felt happy as I thought that it was just a bad dream. Just then I turned, what I saw was a person was lying down. It looked like he was dead. There were lots of people around. I looked closely; the dead body looked just like me. I was confused. I stood quiet in one corner and tried to understand what was going on. I asked one person about the dead person. But he didn’t reply, he just ignored as if he didn’t listen anything. I asked him again. But there was no reply again. I thought he is traumatized. So I went to ask other two guys who were talking to each other. I interrupted their conversation and asked “Can you tell me what happened here? Who is this dead person?” These guys too ignored me completely. Now I was starting to feel infuriated as everyone was ignoring me. So I decided to touch them and interrupt their conversation. As I tried to do that I was shaken as I wasn’t able to do that. My hand just went through their body. I looked around even more surprised. I tried to touch other people. I tried to have a conversation with them but nothing worked. Then I turned and looked at the dead body and realized that body was mine.
I was dead. Then I remembered that it was not the dream which I realized when I woke up. That was a fact and I was dead. Now I am history. I was shot dead by one of the policeman who was chasing down a criminal. The criminal was caught alive later but I lost my life through the chase. See this is one example of how crime destroys others lives. Not only my life but my parents who were dependent on me are also affected by this one criminal. Though I was dead and there shouldn’t be any emotions left in me, but I was feeling bad for my parents. How were they going to survive, as they were completely dependent on me? I had no clue I just left that place and went out on the hilly roads of Darjeeling. Yes, I never imagined that after viewing such beautiful view within few seconds I’ll be dead. I just walked up one of the hills out there. On top there was just one attractive house. Not too big, small but nice and wonderful. There was a beautiful garden with amazing flowers all around the house. I was just standing outside this house and observing the beauty of nature.
I was dead. Then I remembered that it was not the dream which I realized when I woke up. That was a fact and I was dead. Now I am history. I was shot dead by one of the policeman who was chasing down a criminal. The criminal was caught alive later but I lost my life through the chase. See this is one example of how crime destroys others lives. Not only my life but my parents who were dependent on me are also affected by this one criminal. Though I was dead and there shouldn’t be any emotions left in me, but I was feeling bad for my parents. How were they going to survive, as they were completely dependent on me? I had no clue I just left that place and went out on the hilly roads of Darjeeling. Yes, I never imagined that after viewing such beautiful view within few seconds I’ll be dead. I just walked up one of the hills out there. On top there was just one attractive house. Not too big, small but nice and wonderful. There was a beautiful garden with amazing flowers all around the house. I was just standing outside this house and observing the beauty of nature.

This is how I landed outside this house from where I started telling my story. This is not the end, there’s still more to come.

To be continued…
God bless you all!!!
:) :) :)

Some things adore while others infuriate

On 9th July 2010 I will complete nine months in Canada. While I was in high school I never thought that I would travel different places after growing up. Canada is one of the places in the world which has beautiful summers. Also there are some beautiful places here. Day time temperatures in summer never exceed 22*C to 25*C and at night doesn’t fall below 10*C. People living in equatorial region will feel 10*C as cold. But any person who survives the worst and coldest winters of Canada which falls down to -50*C will not feel 10*C as too cold. But at the same time it has the most severe winters which stay consistently at -25*C to -30*C through 70% to 75% of the winter days. I personally do not like cold weather. In Poornima bungalow (back in India) I always used to ask my room mate to switch off the fans or close the windows at night in winters. But now they will laugh and pull my leg after reading all this. The city of Edmonton where I stay is closer to North Pole so the days are longer in summers and nights are longer in winters. To be precise in summers the sun rises at 3.00 am to 3.30 am and sets by 10.30 pm to 11.00 pm. same is the case with night time in winters. In winters sun rises by 9.30 am to 10.00 am and sets by 3.30 pm to 4.00 pm.
In a couple of weeks I am scheduled to go further north almost exactly on North Pole. To let you know more on North Pole the sun doesn’t set in summers and in winters the sun never rises. Even though I never liked cold weather I came here to see a completely different place, have a different work experience and all in all will cherish this work experience. But for all this I had to stay away from all the people I want to be with. Still having four more months to go I have started feeling homesick already. First four – five months I didn’t feel too lonely and infuriated even though I was alone that time. Why is this happening now even though there are two more guys staying with me since past four months?
I have had some wonderful days and some adorable working experience here. I met many people and made quiet a few good friends. Actually all the people whom I worked with were forty years or older. Working with these guys was memorable as they were very helpful, humble and down to earth. Spending some time with them, sharing out thoughts and our experience made me learn a lot. Learn from their experience, their way of working and their professionalism. I also had to do most part of my superior’s job like managing and coordinating the site work which was my site manager’s job. I was expecting myself to perform in field and my site manager would manage all the pressure coming from management of customer. This was not the case as I had to do most of it. Of course this helped me improve my personal and professional skills. But when you see people around you, it hurts to know what I am getting in return for all that I am doing proficiently. I have also worked with some guys who are extremely talented and are honest, while others who I feel are either dumb or idiots or dumb – idiots and at the same time not honest at all.
I worked with both Indians and non-Indians and I hoped the talent and honesty from Indians and expected the dumbness or idiotic behavior from others. But usually you never get what you expect. Same happened with me. Guys accompanying me were more irritating or infuriating because of their lack of presence of mind and their behavior. As I said initially I never felt homesick but started feeling now in last three months. I felt once the new guys come from India to accompany me that would help me. I didn’t expect any kind of professional or technical help from them. Only I expected was them to be absolutely normal. I expect any person to use their common sense no matter how talented they are. Ok some times due to some reason one doesn’t recognize some things. But this should not happen one after one after one after the other. Initially I thought I would have some one to talk and spend some time. But now I feel it was good that I was alone. I was happier then.
Being in same company I met this guy from south part of India here in Canada. We were in different branch locations though. I am from Mumbai while he is from Chennai. I hoped that he would know Hindi our national language. But as I said you don’t get what you expect. He didn’t know Hindi. Then I thought I’ll teach him being here in for another six months together. First week he pissed me off when he told me the reason why he didn’t know Hindi and why he doesn’t even want to learn the national language. We argued about why Hindi was not included in the curriculum of all the schools in south India. His argument was on the point that if this was done the state would loose its own religion and culture. And this would happen by just learning Hindi the national language as per him. I asked for an explanation but he didn’t have one. I just didn’t understand why one would hate learning national language and how this would eradicate its own culture. That day he was speaking lots about his religion and culture. I guess that was the beginning of infuriation within me. Just the next week while we were on site and went for dinner I got to know that he doesn’t believe in God, religion or caste and follows only Buddhism. Hell I hammered him with his entire speech of loosing his culture and religion by learning Hindi. If he didn’t believe in culture how could he say that he looses culture because of Hindi? Ufff…
That was just the beginning. On site I had assigned him some work for half a day and expected him to let me know once he’s done. He started in the morning and by the end of the day I asked him why the work is not done. He said he finished four hours back but was simply sitting there as there was no other work assigned. Dammnn… There after I assigned him work enough for two – three days. Another simple technical common sense, to check the flow with a flow sensor in the pipe the pump in associated line needs to be running. He was checking the flow without running the pumps and reported bad flow sensors. In the house where we stay there is a drier for drying the clothes after washing. It has only two knobs, one for setting the time and other for starting the drier. I couldn’t believe one can be so dumb for not understanding that by pressing the start button the drier would start. He just put the clothes in and was waiting for the drier to start. I had to teach him driving because of my great seniors who sent him to site without learning driving. Also our even great Indian driving authorities who gave him license without knowing driving. The biggest mistake that I did was to accept assisting him in learning driving. Hereafter I am not going take responsibility to teach anything to anyone irrespective of my job profile. This is nothing, if I write all the acts of foolishness done by him I‘ll have to write a book instead of blog. All these days the level of irritation has went on increasing and has now reached saturation.
I don’t have the experience and power to manage these kind of people. This is the reason that since last four months I’ve started feeling homesick. When I was alone the only problem was loneliness. But now loneliness has replaced irritation, frustration and sometimes anger. The customer has appreciated my work and wants me to be here for another year. But I will stay here till I complete next assigned project. So I am expecting to return in four months of time from now. Good thing is he won’t be working with me on my projects. So I hope to stay away from all the things or manage the things causing me infuriation and try and have more adorable experiences here in Canada.


God bless you all!!! And me too!!!!! ;)
:):):)

Flight number – AC 8389 (Part - II)

In continuation with my previous blog "Flight number AC - 8389". I looked out of window and guess what? The fan propellers next to me stopped rotating. I remembered one of the bollywood movies ‘3 Idiots’ in which one of the character Rancho always suggested to say “ALL IS WELL” to your heart when in problem. But nothing was going well at that time in flight number AC – 8389. I was stunned by the fact that I was in 25000 ft high above the ground and one of the plane engine stopped working completely. I wasn’t able to move a muscle. The plane had once again started tilting from the side where the engine had stopped. Once again I could see the mountains below the plane. But this time I couldn’t even think of taking snaps coz this time it happened unintentionally. It seemed clearly that both the pilots couldn’t control the plane. There was too much of disturbance in the plane. Two guys didn’t follow the pilot’s orders of tying the seat belts and because of that they suffered a lot. They were falling all around in the plane as it was swinging left and right. At that time I realized that tying seatbelt may not save from crash, but it can definitely save you from injuries before the crash. You never know that could make the difference between life and death.

I started praying and hoping that somehow there should be some miracle and all of us land safe or for that matter stay alive. The plane had begun to descend on its own. All of us could experience that. I was thinking of my loved ones, I did not want to die. Three hours and fifteen minutes into the flight which was descending, no one of us knew were we going to land safely or crash. But even if the pilot tries to land the plane in this position (perpendicular to ground) it would crash. About ten more minutes in to descend and I could see the land very clearly. In that case I thought we must be only a few hundred ft above the ground. At this time everyone on the plane was shouting for help, praying, crying and yelling. Just at that time we all heard a big boom. There was a blast at the back side of the plane. I turned back to look, god. There was a big blast which cause a big hole in the plane, wtf. There was a pressure drop in because of that. Immediately the oxygen mask dropped down. People struggled to use them as the plane was descending as well as inclined. I managed to get my and helped the lady next to me get hers.

Luckily no one at the back was hurt or was blown off. I could see a plain ground below. It gave me some hopes that at least we were not on top of some mountain where there were no hopes of landing at all. But this situation was even worse and everyone on that plane hoped for a miracle. We were descending at a faster rate now. Nothing in the world could go so wrong with me, why with the plane I am in? I was thinking. There was so much of noise all around, but still I could hear some sound of a motor. I looked out, slowly and steadily the fan propellers of the wing had started. Damn! That could be a sign of a miracle I thought. The engine which had stopped before had started just in time I believed. That was the time these pilots could become hero and get their names printed in the history for ever. They should just land this plane safely.

The propeller engine was working fine now and the plane was back from the inclination. People were silent, happily amazed that the engine started and now the plane was parallel to the ground. Just may be 150 meters from the ground though, there was a plane land to attempt a forceful landing. Just in few seconds we were close to ground. Descend was not steep now as both the engines were working. I just prayed that these engines worked few more seconds and no more booms until we all were safe away. Few more seconds and the plane hit the ground. Big boom!!! When I looked out I saw that the side wheels of the plane did not come out. There was lots of friction. We all were inclined backwards which made me think that only the front wheels had come out. There was a lot of friction which mad the plane slow down quickly than what it would with normal wheels.

After a few seconds the plane had come to stand still in the middle of grassland. There was a lot of dust blown all around. People at the back realized that at back side the plane had caught fire, may be due to the friction. The air hostess struggled to open the front door while all the people rushed behind her to get out. Before the fire could grow up all of us were out of the plane along with the air hostess and two pilots. The fire grew and in few minutes the whole plane was blazing. All of us were out and there were cheers all over the place. In couple of hours there were helicopters to take all of away. I was in the copter and someone tapped on my back. I turned around; she was the old lady who was sitting next to me in the plane. There was a big smile on her face. I gave a big smile and said, “Yes, we made it!!! You were right, we all are safe.”

I reached Toronto airport to continue my journey to India, but one day later. I was taken to the hospital for checkup. I got my remaining flights re-scheduled. A day later I landed in Mumbai and everyone was waiting for my arrival. Finally I was back and no more I had to take those Air Canada flights. I promised my self flight number AC – 8389 will be my last Air Canada flight ever in my lifetime.

God bless you all!!!

JJJ

Flight number – AC 8389 (Part - I)

It was 3 am when I took a step out of my house early morning. I had called a cab which was waiting for me outside my house. It was -60*C the coldest temperature in the history of Edmonton. I was going back to India after a long time as I had finished my site assignment in Canada. 10th November 2010 was the day which came after one year one month and one day since I came to Canada. The day had come to see my love, my family, my friends and my country. I had never been so patient for anything before this. My Flights were from Edmonton to Toronto, then from Toronto to Frankfurt and finally from Frankfurt to Mumbai. Yes!!! I was very happy even though I had to start my day so early. Salvinder an Indian Punjabi guy who stayed in Edmonton for last seven years had become my good friend there. He really helped me in needs. He dropped me at Edmonton International airport at Air Canada entrance gate. Whole heartedly I wished him luck for his future.

My first flight was booked with Air Canada and remaining two with Lufthansa Airlines. The entire year I took flights to travel from one place to another within Canada. But I never heard or saw any Air Canada international flight. Well I would be the last person in the world to opt for Air Canada for flying anywhere. Air Canada uses propellers to fly the planes where as all other airlines use jet planes. Even though for domestic flights you won’t find planes with propellers, at least not in a country who calls itself a developed country. The problem I faced with Air Canada was whenever there was a bad cold weather these planes always terrified me. Consider, you are 20000 ft above the ground between the clouds the airhostess are serving snacks and drinks, suddenly this plane starts shaking. Shaking like shivering as if the plane is feeling too cold in negative temperature. I bet all the people start praying until they land safely. In comparison the jet planes like that of West Jet were extremely stable like if a glass of water is kept on the flap, it never shook even a bit.

Well my happiness to go home had overcome the Air Canada terror in me. I was waiting my turn for security check with my ticket in hand. It read Flight number – AC 8389, seat number 5A – confirmed, departure time: 0550 and arrival 0950. It was a long flight for domestic travel of about four hours. I smiled happily looking at it and went through the check easily. I boarded the plane and took my seat, a window seat. Since it was a domestic plane it was a smaller one with just 50 seas in it. My seat was just near the left wing and I could see the propellers right next to me. Everyone took their seats. The air hostess was demonstrating the safety features and bla, bla, bla, bla… I had known that so many times that I could demonstrate it without mistake. Anyways I was least interested to pay attention. I was looking out thinking about my wish which came true in the form of a nightmare last year in these winters. Few minutes later the air hostess came to me and the sweet old lady sitting next to me. The air hostess started, “Please pay attention to me sir and madam. As you are sitting next to the emergency exit door you need to know how to open it only in case of emergency.” The word “only” kept revolving in my head like I could imagine hundreds of O, N, L and Y flying around me. The air hostess said, “Is it ok sir? Did you understand?” She had finished explaining while I was imagining and hoping that there would be no emergency. I don’t know why I said “Yes, I did”. She went back and took her seat.

The lady next to me looked at me and smiled, I smiled back saying “I hope there is no emergency”. The old lady started laughing as if I had cracked funniest joke. I once again smiled at her with little bit of happiness, little bit of kindness and anger for her, lots of nervousness and most of Air Canada terror which was back in me. I thought she was laughing on me, as she had lived her life and was in her 70s. I was in the planning stage of mine. I was in mid twenties where people are earning as well as planning for rest of their life. The plane started moving towards runway and I started looking out. The take off was pretty scary but it did and we were in air. Another problem with these planes is that those propellers make a lot of noise. And suddenly when you are in air the noise stops or fades feeling as if the engine stopped. That is even worse. Also I don’t understand why these pilots have to take a steep turn. As soon as we went few hundred feet up the plane took a turn at very steep angle. I could see the houses exactly below the plane very clearly. Just to share it with friends I took a couple of snaps on my Sony Ericsson phone W700i. About fifteen minutes later the pilot announced “We are 25000 ft above the ground. Good weather, it is now safe to unlock the seat belts, but advised to keep it locked”. I kept it locked just to be safe. Then thought even is something happens, how this locked seat belt was going to save me. I just hoped for good flight nothing else.

Three hours had passed on the flight. The air hostess had finished serving snacks and drinks to everyone. I could see everyone’s face that they were waiting to land sooner. Suddenly the plane started shaking like I said before. There was an announcement by the pilot. “Passengers kindly fasten their seat belts. Use of lavatory avoided at this time.” The plane engine was making too much of noise and shaking a lot. Some women started shouting. I said, “Why the hell are these women shouting? Is it going to stop shaking this plane?” not too loud. The old lady next to me taped my hand and smiled. This time she smiled as if she was saying “Don’t worry everything will be fine”. Like she read my mind and knew even I too was terrified by it. Then I looked out of window and guess what? The fan propellers next to me stopped rotating.

Remaining part in next blog…

God bless you all!!!

JJJ

Hunger

Hunger is the word when one speaks about many emotions starts arising within him. It depends on person to person which emotion comes first or you can say which emotion is the strongest. Explaining more, it depends upon the person’s nature, behavior, the region or country he/she belongs to, their upbringing, their education and literacy, their ambition in life, their relations with other people, etc. Taking into consideration all these factors any person in this world may have hunger of money, of fame, of helping others, of sex, of love (here I mean absolutely true love and it could be mother’s love, father’s love, husband, wife, son, daughter, friend, anything) and so on.

To commence I’ll tell you what I believe and think when I talk about hunger. I want to be ‘free financially’ as early as possible in my life. Financially free, it means I have enough money with me all the time to satisfy my family’s needs. For example I go out with my family for a weekend and my wife and parents decide to go on short tour and start shopping for it, then at that moment they should not feel the need to think of money or plan as per our financial status. I want my family to just tell me all their desire in life and I fulfill them straight away. This state is financially free. To be financially free I need to earn lots of money. I have the hunger of money within me. Frankly, most of the people in this world have this hunger in more or less amount and it is there because of their needs.

Hunger of fame is one of its kinds where people may do crazy things to become famous. In one of the Indian television shows “Entertainment ke liye kuch bhi karega” people ate tube lights and bulbs, another one ate nuts and screws. In other singing and dancing shows people come to sing and dance like they are the most eligible future stars and people were just waiting to see them. But when they open their mouth for singing or do a dancing step, it seems as if that must be first time ever in their life they sang or dance. When asked why all this? Fame was the answer. The famous Indian writer Chetan Bhagat is famous not because he wanted to be but because he has one good quality of writing. He is famous in India at least now after the release of movie ‘3 Idiots’ based on his first book “Five point someone”. The people who don’t read books even they will know him. I personally believe instead of doing crazy things one should spot the best quality in them and enhance to gain fame in life.

Sex is a desire present in variable amount in every human being. But I think some people are hungry for it when they attempt a rape whether successful or not. No wonder number of rapes is increasing in world. Male raping a male was heard but a male raped by female in Spokane in 1997 is something very rare. Definitely by now the number must have increased in this category as well. Bahamas has reported to have highest number of rapes in world. In India 0.143187 people (specifically women in India) are raped out of 1000. So if we consider 45% female population i.e. 500 million then 71594 Indian women are raped. More importantly all these figures are reported ones. If unreported incidents too are considered, I don’t need to say anything else. Well I feel it is absolutely distorted and erroneous mentality to leave someone shattered in life just to fulfill our desire.

Love, what can I say about this? There are many poets and writers who have written and said numerous articles about this beautiful desire in humans. Loving is one thing that separates humans from all other living beings in this world. Loving their own kids, bringing them up fighting with world for them is being done by animals as well. But loving other people, helping them, being kind to others is what humans can do. There are millions of orphans in this world who lack for parents love in their entire life. Also there are older men and women let alone by their children in their last days. They are just left at ‘old age home’ or you can say ‘old age house’. House is made by walls and roof, but home is made by the people living in that house. It is difficult to find a home at a place where our children are not there. What does it take for a person to give little happiness to others or for that matter to their own people?

Millions of people die in this world due to hunger and dehydration. But there are thousands of places where millions of people waste food and water everyday. Not only in India but in world 85% of income is owned by 15% of people. How much does it need for a person to live happily and die in this world? Yes one reason I want to be financially free is that I want to help as many poor and needy that I can in this world.

To talk, write or explain about hunger or desire in humans will never stop. One can go on and on and on. Just before I take a pause at this blog I just want to make you aware of one thing. If by chance your hunger of one thing is satisfied, it doesn’t mean the game is over. You will always be provoked to the next available desire in the list.

God bless you all!!!

JJJ

A Wish or a Nightmare?

It was 20th Nov 2009, an absolute heck of one of the coldest mornings Karthik had ever encountered throughout his life. He was at his house in Edmonton, returned previous night from work at Fort Mcmurray. He had never experienced real heavy snow fall before this day. It was 8:34 am when he just opened his eyes and it was still dark outside the window. The view was not very clear as he wasn’t awake completely. Normally the sunrises by 7:30 am, but that morning there was heavy snowfall. In fact the snowfall started sometime at midnight. Lying on his bed Karthik checked the time in his cell phone which he had kept next to his pillow using as alarm clock. He was puzzled at the same time wanted to know why it was dark out. He got down from his bed and came closer to window of his bedroom. As he was reaching the edge of the window, at every second the view outside the window was broadening. The view brought several emotions in him at the same time. He was astounded, concerned and pleased. Astounded as he had never seen this before and it came all of a sudden to him, concerned as he hated cold and he had to deal with this and pleased as one of his wishes had come true. He wished to be in this white desert one day just to enjoy it once in his life. It was a complete white out, each and every lane, walk way, trees, roof tops of houses, cars, etc were covered with snow. The balcony next to kitchen was covered with snow of 5-6 inches of snow. On that one night there were more than 7-8 inches of snowfall everywhere in the city and it wasn’t over. The snow was still falling.

He was staying approximately 35 Km away from the downtown in Edmonton. The worries were that he had to drive all the way to downtown at Apollo Motors to get the driver’s side mirrors fixed for his car. Driving in snow needs really good driving experience, right snow tires and be extremely careful while accelerating and braking. Karthik was the man who came from Mumbai and had never seen snow and never ever had a chance to drive in snow. Here comes his day, he had to do it. He waited till 11:30 am before moving out to let the snowfall stop. It’s all in vain, as god just made sure to fulfill his wish of going out in that chilling desert. The temperature in Edmonton that day was -29*C and -38*C wind chill, the wind was blowing at 70 Km/hr.

He started the car moved out of garage there he goes into a big heap of snow, both right tires are stuck. Hunnn…. Welcome to white desert, that was what he felt was god saying. After clearing the snow beside the tires he was able to move on. It was just 3-4 minutes out in that cold and he was frozen, his finger tips through the gloves, ears, nose and cheeks had gone numb. It took about 10-12 minutes for him to get back to normal. As I said he had to travel about 35 kilometers and the road wasn’t straight forward. Also he was driving at 35 Km/hr whereas the acceptable speed limit was 60 Km/hr in the city. He had to go up the hill just few kilometers before the downtown. He had reached the bridge of the frozen Athabasca River and there he lines behind the long traffic. Two cars had skidded on the uphill road. The problem in these messy and snowy uphill roads is that back tire keeps rotating at its place and the car doesn’t move ahead, instead it skids sideways from behind. That’s dangerous when there is oncoming traffic in left lane and a valley on the right side. It was 40 minutes in same position 1:30 pm and he was feeling hungry. He was fortunate enough as he had a pack of Parle-G biscuit. Few minutes later the traffic started moving, man he was comforted. No sooner he reaches the same spot and the car in front of him skidded there. The drama continues, as I said before its back tire skidded and made the car take almost 90* turn on the same spot. Again the halt, five minutes later three officers helped that car push and move up the hill. Being new to these conditions Karthik drove brilliantly. He managed not to skid or crash with other cars on his way to the Apollo Motors to change the driver’s side mirror of his car.

After coming back from Apollo Motors Karthik was pleased to know that he is back home safely and reached his destination. But, but, but… That was not the end; it was just the beginning of the winters in Canada. He just managed to stay warm that weekend by staying in the house, but he can’t do it for long. Next Monday morning he had a flight at 7:05 am by Air Canada to Fort Mcmurray, back to work. While he was in flight before landing the flight person announced the weather of Fort Mcmurray. As soon as the flight person said it is -42*C and -53*C wild chill at Fort Mcmurray, Karthik started quivering on his seat. The plane landed at 8:05 am and Karthik was out with his bags, his colleague Janos was waiting for him at the waiting room. Janos is from Hungary and now working with Karthik at Suncore site which is approximately 170 Km from Fort Mcmurray airport. These two chaps have to drive again all the way to the site. They have a van which is in open parking exposed to this severe atmosphere for three complete days.

They reach the parking and their van is covered with snow. Karthik was just wondering why the hell did he take up this assignment and come all the way from place like Mumbai. They quickly got into the van and Janos in driving seat put the key in to start it. The tragedy comes again. Van doesn’t start. The engine too is frozen, they try for ten minutes. Thinking of going back to the airport to get some help, they see the bus coming intended to take people from parking to airport to protect them from freezing. The bus driver has the booster cables. By connecting batteries of both the vehicles by the booster cables the van should start. But they were in queue. There were two more cars to be started before them, so they got into the bus since it was warmer in there. Twenty minutes later the batteries were connected with booster cable and it took another ten minutes for their van to start. By that time both Karthik’s and Janos’s hands and legs became numb. Karthik was feeling deep trouble for himself. Though the van started in ten minutes the heater to blow hot air takes time, especially when the engine is frozen for three days. They could not wait there too, so that had to start and move. Karthik’s feet had already become numb, but that wasn’t it. The finger tip of hands and legs as well started paining rigorously. It pained as if someone was nailing pins on every finger tip of his. He was sitting there as a lifeless body, couldn’t help but wait till it gets better. Now Karthik was wishing that the heater blows warm air quickly, but it takes time. Janos while driving was worried what happened to him.

They have to wait on the way at Mc Donald’s to take breakfast and lunch parcel. They stopped at Mc Donald’s. Karthik was immovable. He thought might be inside Mc Donald’s he’ll feel better. He went in, while walking barely could he feel his feet. After buying the food he waited there but it never helped. Karthik came back to van hoping that at least then there will be some warm air coming from heater. Unfortunately that is not the case. Janos drives the van to Tim Horton’s which is another restaurant where he wanted to buy food. It takes fifteen minutes to reach there, by that time the van’s heater starts giving warm air. Janos moves out and Karthik stays back to warm up. By that time Karthik had the worst one hour of his lifetime ever. His finger tips were still paining. He removed shoes and socks to keep his feet in front of the fans blowing warm air. After twenty odd minutes his hands and legs were going back to normal and he was feeling better then. By the time Janos came he was feeling exhausted and drowsy. They started moving to site for work with good temperature inside the van. Karthik ate up his lunch as well.

On the way he kept wandering, this is a wish or a nightmare which has come true...